diff --git a/CHANGES.txt b/CHANGES.txt
index e18c849f028..dd7a5c4c302 100644
--- a/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/CHANGES.txt
@@ -286,6 +286,7 @@ Release 0.20.0 - Unreleased
                scan can't specify stopRow (Clint Morgan via Stack)
    HBASE-1693  NPE close_region ".META." in shell
    HBASE-1706  META row with missing HRI breaks UI
+   HBASE-1709  Thrift getRowWithColumns doesn't accept column-family only
 
   IMPROVEMENTS
    HBASE-1089  Add count of regions on filesystem to master UI; add percentage
diff --git a/src/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/thrift/ThriftServer.java b/src/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/thrift/ThriftServer.java
index c6a2fa7fea8..2754ce0addd 100644
--- a/src/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/thrift/ThriftServer.java
+++ b/src/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/thrift/ThriftServer.java
@@ -346,7 +346,11 @@ public class ThriftServer {
         Get get = new Get(row);
         for(byte [] column : columnArr) {
           byte [][] famAndQf = KeyValue.parseColumn(column);
-          get.addColumn(famAndQf[0], famAndQf[1]);
+          if (famAndQf[1] == null || famAndQf[1].length == 0) {
+              get.addFamily(famAndQf[0]);
+          } else {
+              get.addColumn(famAndQf[0], famAndQf[1]);
+          }
         }
         get.setTimeRange(Long.MIN_VALUE, timestamp);
         Result result = table.get(get);