He was the son of Toros Sookiasian and likely his wife Mariam Kojabashian, though as there is a big age gap between his first two children and younger ones which causes some questions. It is speculated that perhaps there could have been a different first wife with the first two but this is just speculation. Sarkis married Varter Rose Stepanian and they had a son Stepan and a daughter Markarid (married name Paksarian). Sarkis was probably born in the early 1860s, so 1861 is used on this page as an estimate but unconfirmed birth year. His son Stepan recounted seeing his father killed during massacres, and Stepan was sent away from Malatya for his safety soon after these events. Stepan was sent away around 1895, a period which coincides with the Hamidian Massacres of 1895-1896, so it is likely these were the massacres he was describing. Their size and scope in Malatya is not known to me and requires more research. Thus Sarkis is ascribed an estimated death year of 1895 on here even though it is not exactly known. There are no other accounts of Sarkis's life, but there are some hints. For example Sarkis's brother named his son Sarkis born in 1899, even though the tradition was to name first sons after the paternal grandfather. This could have been to memorialize his late brother, as children were often named for desceased relatives. A document from 1914 asked asked whether Stepan's parents were living or dead when he turned sixteen (about 1903), and he wrote that they were both already dead at that time.

Family legend holds that after his father's death Stepan was sent to study with the Mekhitarist monks in Venice and then around 1903 joined his father's brothers in Philadelphia. Sarkis's daughter Markarid remained in Malatya and was likely deported to the Syrian desert as part of the Armenian Genocide of 1915. In 1955 she was discovered to be living in the border town of Ain al-Arab, Syria after reaching out to an Armenian refugee organization to find her family. She was reunited with her brother Stepan through letters which they exchanged over the remaining three years until his death.