The Emergence of the Sanders Family History Newsletter

When I was in high school, one of my least favorite subjects was History. I had no interest in the past-until January 1996.

What’s really ironic is that I’m employed in the History Department here at the University of California, Riverside in Riverside, California. I didn’t join the History Department to teach history, but to teach computer classes and teach undergraduate students how to use the computer for historical research, and to use specific software programs to publish their research and findings.

Over the years, I’d listen to the History Department’s office manager, Connie Young, talk about her genealogical research and watched how excited she’d be when discovering a new family connection or locate a new grave of a relative while rambling through graveyards in Kentucky and Missouri. One time she showed me this beautiful family tree chart which stretched across many 8% x 11 sheets of paper, with the name of one of her ancestors that I found purely fascinating - William the Conqueror. Right then I decided that I too wanted to try researching my family’s history.

Initially, the only thing ( wanted to do was find out the names of my paternal great-grandparents, so I could create a family tree chart like Connie’s to show off.

But as I started researching and digging into old records, visiting family history centers, and national archives, I became “obsessed” with finding more old records and ancestors - especially the African American SANDERS who lived in and around Cass, Bowie and Marion Counties in Texas; Miller County in Arkansas; and Caddo and Bossier Parishes in Louisiana.

The closest LDS Family History Center to where I live is in Los Angeles, California - about sixty miles away. However, the miles meant nothing, because for two years I drove to L.A. every Saturday morning to read microfilm and soundex rolls, and look through state and county index books, trying to find all the clues I possibly could on my ancestors.

After a while, I ran into many roadblocks (and continue to do so) in my research, so I had to start writing letters to genealogy societies, relatives - some known and unknown, county clerks and government agencies, hoping to remove some of the roadblocks standing in the way of my going forward in my research.

One of the brighter sides of my research is, the new surnames that surfaced (i.e., BLACKWELL, ALLEN, WARD, ROSE, WILLIAMS, WOODS, LOVE, MACK, STEPHENS), and all linked to the SANDERS surname in some form or another.

When I started out, the only surnames I was familiar with on my paternal side of the tree was SANDERS and WARREN.

And on my maternal side, I was only acquainted with the surnames HUGHES, BROOKS and SHEPHARD (spelled many different ways including: SHPHERD, SHEPARD and SHEPPARD).

During the last year, my research goals took dramatic turns. I found the need to communicate more with others researching the same surnames as I am.

In June 1998, I received an e-mail message from Louise SANDERS Asher of Colorado Springs, Colorado, inquiring about the African American SANDERS I was researching in Cass County, Texas. Louise and I exchanged names and other information all through the months of June, July, and August last summer.

It became quite apparent that Louise and I shared th same relatives. The features in the photos of the SANDERS men Louise and I exchanged through regular mail had an uncanny likeness to one another. And not only the SANDERS men, but my own sister called to tell me (after she’d seen a photo of Louise) that Louise and I could easily pass for sisters.

One Sunday evening in early September, 1998,1 was sitting at my computer adding some new-found information to one of the chapters in the book, when a brainstorm hit. I decided -without any kind of reservation - that I was going to write and publish a newsletter for SANDERS and allied family members, so I could connect others and hopefully gather additional information to go into the SANDERS family history book.

I immediately e-mailed Louise and told her what I wanted to do with the newsletter. She thought it was a wonderful idea and offered to help me any way she could with the project.

Thus, the SANDERS Family History Newsletter emerged, with the first issue printed and mailed out in October 1998 (I wrote this first issue in one night). I couldn’t have done all of this with the newsletter without Louise’s help, input (and output) and continual support. The newsletter has stirred much interest among relatives and friends.

I have been able to gather a lot more information for the book than I ever thought possible. Of course, there’s stiff a tot more information to be gathered, but I have hope. If only I’d known what I know now, I would have listened to all that my mother and grandmother use to tell me about their years as children growing up in Texas and Louisiana.

I’ve also found that we family history researchers all have at least two things in common - we’re looking for answers to questions surrounding our ancestors and hit road blocks sometimes that we just can’t seem to get around. But we African American family historians have much more of a challenge facing us than our Caucasian counterparts.

For instance, other than Alex Haley of Roofs fame, I don’t really know of any other African American who has been able to trace their ancestors to the one African slave brought to this country from Africa or other countries. This is now one of my long-term goals.

However, another of my immediate goals is to find the answers to questions like how did my great-great-grandfather and great-grandfather, Gary and Abb SANDERS get to Cass County from their birthplace (supposedly Georgia and perhaps other states), and who did they arrive with. I’m still in search of the slave-owner or master’s name, if indeed they were slaves when they arrived in Linden, Texas.

Several names have been on the horizon in a faint answer to this question. Specifically, names like the ELLINGTONS, LASSITERS, FORDS, GRUBBS, BLANKENSHIPS, and SANDERS. And it’s quite possible that these names may have nothing to do with how my ancestors arrived in Cass County, but until I can locate wills and/or inventories of these people to verify or discount they did or did not own slaves, and the slaves’ names, I have to keep these surnames in mind as I continue to search. Louise has the same goals with respect to her grandfather, Thomasrrom SANDERS.

Although nothing of the past ever interested me while I was in high school, I have come to realize that the past does, in a lot of cases, affect many of our futures.

And the information we seek about the events and people of the past should be pursued with not one bit of caution, but an ever-strong desire to find answers about our ancestors using all legal means necessary.