First found in Shropshire where they were seated from very ancient times, in Ludlow, before and after the Norman Conquest in 1066.

For many English families, the political and religious disarray that shrouded England made the far away New World an attractive prospect. On cramped disease-ridden ships, thousands migrated to those British colonies that would eventually become Canada and the United States. Those hardy settlers that survived the journey often went on to make important contributions to the emerging nations in which they landed. Analysis of immigration records indicates that some of the first North American immigrants bore the name Waters or a variant listed above: John Waters settled with his wife Frances and three children in Boston Mass. in 1630; Edward Waters settled in Virginia in 1610; Giles Waters settled in Jamaica in 1663 with Henry.

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