Julia Ansley Clayland was born in Upson County, Georgia, to Francis Asberry and Elizabeth Alison Prator Ansley. In 1866, she married the Rev. John V. Clayland, a widower from Mississippi. After his death in 1896, she lived with various relatives or worked to support them, such as living in as a cook for a family in Anniston, Alabama, in 1900. In the last two years of her life, she lived with brothers Quintillian Stith Ansley in Carroll County, Georgia, and with Alonzo N. Ansley in Jefferson County, Alabama.