Hi Rob,
Welcome to the wonderful world of genealogy. I wish I had started young, as you are doing. Your best sources are your oldest family members, and the older you get the fewer you have. I usually try some of the bigger data bases when I'm giving advice. I didn't find anything helpful for you.
Are you sure of the spelling? RootsWeb has a data base of people who died in the USA from about 1960 onwards, from the Social Security Administration. It has 68 million names. There are no with the surname Lafatette and none with the given name Lafatette. Could your first surname be Lafayette?
The SSDI link is
http://ssdi.genealogy.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/ssdi.cgiWomen are on it by their last married name. It doesn't have a Fay Sanders.
Second suggestion - be more specific in your heading.
"Fay Lafatette, m. Ebeneezer Sanders 1843, Elk Run Va"
tells people more than your heading did. I'm assuming Fay's maiden name was Lafatette or Lafayette and she married a Mr. Sanders, since you have two surnames in the "Surnames" field of your post. The date she was born or the date she married Mr. Sanders would help. There were people named Fay born in 1712, in 1942 and every year in between. The state, or at least country helps too. No sense looking for them on the SSDI if they lived in Canada.
Third suggestion - since you have specific surnames, try specific query boards. GenForum has two for your surnames, again assuming the Lafatette is Lafayette;
http://genforum.genealogy.com/sanders/http://genforum.genealogy.com/lafayette/Family History has two also:
http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec?htx=board&r=an&p=s...http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec?htx=board&r=an&p=s...I looked in
www.Google.com, the world's best search engine. From the results for "Fay Lafayette", in quotes, it looks like "Fay" is a common nickname for someone whose given or middle name if "Lafayette". Are you looking for just one person, whose full legal name might have been "Alonzo Lafayette Sanders", or "Elmer Lafayette Sanders", but used "Fay (Lafayette) Sanders" all his life?
RootsWeb World Connect,
http://worldconnect.genealogy.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgihas 86 entries for given name Lafayette, surname Sanders. Many of them are duplicates.
Write back. I'll try to help when I get a clearer idea of who you are looking for.