Anna Willix was likely born in Exeter, New Hampshire sometime prior to 1648. While living with her sister in Boston Anna met Robert Riscoe, who she married and moved to North Carolina with by 1670. Riscoe died and Anna remarried by June 1683, this time to James Blount, a members of the North Carolina Council and a landowner in Chowan Precinct. Blount died in 1686, leaving Anna with enough wealth to support herself for the remainder of her life.

Sometime later Anna married for a third time, this time to the colony's governor Seth Sothel. Sothel's term as governor was a controversial one and when the colonists exiled her husband from the colony Anna may have joined her husband in South Carolina and Virginia. When Sothel died in February 1694, he left all of his property to Anna. However, Sothel had been accused of illegally claiming property while he had served as governor and many North Carolinians contested Sothel's estate, claiming that the former governor had not legally owned much of his property.

Anna married for a fourth and final time in the fall of 1694, this time to John Lear, a resident of Nansemond, Virginia and a member of that colony's council. Anna died by May 1695, predeceasing Lear, to whom she left much of property in North Carolina she had inherited from Sothel and Blount.

When John Lear died later that year, there was extensive ligation about the ownership of much of the Lear/Sothel estate. Thomas Pollock claimed administration of the Lears' estate in North Carolina, but others also claimed portions of the estate, including John Lear's executors in Virginia and Anna's family from New England.