Sanders Family ReunionGrand Rivers, Kentucky

Our Story

The Descendants of Charles Hubbard Sanders & Sadie Jane Stinnett

Every reunion tells a story of who came before. Here's ours — and an open invitation to the branches we're just now getting to know.

A sepia-toned portrait of Charles Hubbard Sanders and Sadie Jane Stinnett Sanders, seated together for a formal photograph.

Charles Hubbard Sanders & Sadie Jane Stinnett Sanders

The Founding Generation

Charles Hubbard Sanders & Sadie Jane Stinnett

This family, and this reunion, trace back to Charles Hubbard Sanders and Sadie Jane Stinnett. Theirs is the home place that generations of us have heard about at the table — the name that comes up first when someone asks, "now how are we related, exactly?"

This page is a living document. As more family history comes to light — through old letters, courthouse records, and the DNA research described on the Y-DNA Project page — we'll keep filling in the story here.

Have a photo, date, or story to add?

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Growing Beyond the Original Line

Widening the circle

For years, this reunion has belonged to the children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren of Charles and Sadie. But family trees rarely stop where we first draw the line — and as our research has pushed a generation or two further back and sideways, we've found cousins who share this family's roots without ever having sat at one of our tables.

That's why we're opening this reunion up. If your family connects to the Sanders or Stinnett line a step or two beyond Charles and Sadie themselves — a sibling's descendants, a shared great-grandparent, a name that keeps showing up in the same old county records — you belong here too.

Not sure if you fit? That's exactly what the reunion is for. Come find out, and bring whatever you know — even a half-remembered story can be the piece that connects two branches.

Tell Us How You Connect

Deeper Roots

How far back we've traced

Though our Sanders line in Colonial America has been traced by some researchers to the mid 1600s and earlier, our research has focused on bridging the gap to a William Sanders thought to have been born around the late 1600s in Virginia. This William married a woman named Mary Elizabeth Remy, and they are thought to have had at least eight children, two of which are William and James. The pair, born in the very early 1700s, appear to have remained very close for most of their lives, with speculation they might have been twins.

The family seems to have moved in well-off circles, and both sons married up: William married Elizabeth Gunnell, and James married her sister Sarah. The Gunnells had real money, and by some accounts, distant ties to British royalty. Between them, these two marriages are what researchers now call the Sanders–Gunnell clan, the same colonial Virginia line described on the Y-DNA project page.

James and Sarah's descendants are the better-documented of the two branches, but our reunion's own line runs through William and Elizabeth.

Following William's Line

Five Williams and a war

This next stretch is where the name “William Sanders” repeats enough to get seriously confusing. It's worth reading slowly, and worth remembering if the names in the tree stop lining up.

Two children of William Sanders and Elizabeth Gunnell, also named William and James, married sisters in another well-connected family, the Gores. William married Easter Gore — our line — and James married Mary Gore, another well-researched Sanders line.

William appears to have moved to South Carolina around 1769, likely with the Gore family, following the 1768 death of his father in Frederick, Maryland. Like much of the family, he seems to have been a committed patriot: he loaned money and goods to the South Carolina colony during the Revolutionary War, and by most accounts was never repaid — costing his branch of the family a real share of its fortune. Records on him are thin otherwise, which is exactly why this line is part of the family's Y-DNA project today.

That William and Easter appear to have had a son — also William — who married Hester Gore, likely the niece of the above Easter. This William died in 1804, leaving two daughters behind. What he probably didn't know was that his wife was already carrying a son, born the following year, 1805.

That posthumous son — yet another William — made his way from South Carolina with his mother and siblings to Trigg County, Kentucky. There, he first married Nancy Adams, and they had several children together. After Nancy's death, he married a much younger woman, Susan Sparks, and had two more children: a daughter, Laura, and Charles Hubbard.

Where the Story We Know Begins

Charles Hubbard Sanders

That son was Charles Hubbard Sanders — the same Charles Hubbard Sanders who married Sarah Jane "Sadie" Stinnett above, and whose family has gathered together every other year for decades now.

A Patchwork Family

The family tree, one block at a time

Every family history is really a patchwork — pieces gathered from different places, stitched together over time. Here's a first look at how the generations connect. Consider it a work in progress.

Charles Hubbard Sanders & Sadie Jane Stinnett
The Founding Generation

Their Children

Lottie Lynn Sanders
1901–1980
Harvey Daulton Sanders
1902–1902
Jessie B. Sanders
1903–1908
Hallie Gertrude Sanders
1904–1930
Howard Newton Sanders
1905–1910
Barbara Ellen Sanders
1907–1969
Horace William Sanders
1909–1986
Lawson Fred “Pat” Sanders
1911–1997
Ellis Reed Sanders
1913–1913
Benjamin Franklin Sanders Sr.
1914–1972
Five of Charles Hubbard Sanders and Sadie Jane Stinnett's children standing together outdoors.

Some of Charles Hubbard and Sadie Jane's children

Grandchildren & the Branches Beyond

Six of Charles and Sadie's ten children lived to marry and raise families of their own. Each branch below is named for the child of Charles & Sadie it descends from, and the spouse they married.

Lottie Lynn Sanders & Clarence Luther Fuqua

Clarence, 1891–1983

  • Roscoe Bain Fuqua, 1914–1981
  • Eveline Fuqua, 1916–2015
  • Cleo Duel Fuqua, 1919–1995
  • Mary Ellen Fuqua, 1921–1999
  • Dorothy Margaret Fuqua, 1922–2009
  • Clarence Luther “C.L.” Fuqua Jr., 1923–2010
  • Howard Wesley Fuqua, 1925–1973
  • Sarah Francis Fuqua, 1928–2007
  • Rebecca Mae Fuqua, 1933–2007
  • Alice Jane Fuqua, 1935–2015
  • Agnes Ruth Fuqua, 1939–2021

Hallie Gertrude Sanders & James Coy Hamilton

James, 1897–1939

  • Ruby B. Hamilton, 1919–2015
  • Nova Bernice Hamilton, 1930–2016
  • Elizabeth Jane Hamilton

Barbara Ellen Sanders & John Taylor Martin

John, 1902–1987

  • John Boyd Martin, 1937–2017
  • Charles Robert Martin, 1939–2017
  • Marjane Martin, 1940–2014
  • Grace Martin, 1943–
  • George Sanders Martin, 1946–

Horace William Sanders & Mary Jane Croxton

Mary Jane, 1910–1981

  • Donald Ray Sanders, 1937–1937
  • Herbert Lee Sanders, 1941–2007
  • Charles William Sanders, 1944–2010

Lawson Fred “Pat” Sanders & Marjorie R. Gruver

Marjorie, 1916–2000

  • Charles Keifer Sanders, 1936–2014
  • William “Bill” Benjamin Sanders, 1941–1983
  • Fred H. Sanders, 1942–1968
  • Elizabeth (Beth) J. Sanders, 1945–

Benjamin Franklin Sanders Sr. & Ruth Elizabeth Severe

Ruth, 1914–1965

  • Betty Jean Sanders, 1940–2018
  • Benjamin Franklin “Bud” Sanders Jr., 1942–2018
  • Martha J. Sanders, 1945–2022

Harvey Daulton, Jessie B., Howard Newton, and Ellis Reed are remembered among their brothers and sisters above — none of the four survived to adulthood, so their branches end there.

Married in, connected through a generation further back, or just now discovering you belong here? We'd love to add your branch.

This tree grows as family members send in names, dates, and stories — add your branch.

Reunion Through the Years

How this gathering has grown

The Early Years

A small gathering of Charles & Sadie's children and grandchildren

What started as a handful of family members catching up turned into a tradition worth marking on the calendar every other year.

Recent Decades

Great-grandchildren and cousins join in

As the family grew and spread out across the country, Grand Rivers stayed the one place everyone could still find their way back to.

Today

Opening the circle wider than ever

With new research — and a Y-DNA project helping confirm connections the paper trail alone can't — we're welcoming cousins from branches we're only now getting to know.

Curious how DNA is helping us map the rest of the family tree?

A simple test is helping confirm — and in some cases discover — how far this family really reaches.

See the Y-DNA Project