Josephus Waters Family in The Genealogist

One of the greatest services a genealogist can do for colleagues and researchers everywhere is to publish results that distinguish families that are easily confused -- especially ones involving a common name or one that's hard to search for. In the fall issue of The Genealogist, Gale Ion Harris takes up the family of pioneer surveyor Josephus Burton Waters (1750?-1826?) of Maryland, Ohio, and Kentucky. He has also described, and will be describing further, the apparently unrelated but nearby Isaac Waters family. I hope more of us will be inspired to publish our "wrong" families, and not leave their evidence on the cutting-room floor!

Seven of Josephus's children had children. The author notes that there may be a few more unidentified, and still succeeds in locating 54 grandchildren. Many family members stayed in Kentucky; others dispersed to Texas, Louisiana, Oregon, and California, as well as various Midwestern counties: Marion and Jefferson in Illinois; Jennings in Indiana; Highland, Clermont, and Brown in Ohio; Jackson in Missouri; and Scott, Washington, Taylor, Wapello, and Lucas in Iowa. For reasons not made clear the author sometimes rested content with derivative sources for wills, deeds, newspapers, and court records, but other Waters family researchers need not look this spirited gift horse in the mouth, as enough information is available for them to fill in those omissions.



Gale Ion Harris, "Josephus Burton Waters of Maryland, Ohio, and Kentucky: A Pioneer Surveyor," The Genealogist 26, no. 2 (Fall 2012): 272-93.


Harold Henderson, "Josephus Waters Family in The Genealogist," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 15 November 2012 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]