Williams was born in Millwood, New York. She is the daughter of music teachers Helen L. (née Tinch) and Milton Augustine Williams, Jr. A DNA test revealed that her ancestry is 23% from Ghana, 17% from the British Isles, 15% from Cameroon, 12% Finnish, 11% Southern European, 7% Togo, 6% Benin, 5% Senegal and 4% Portuguese. Her parents, put on her birth announcement "Here she is: Miss America"