diff --git a/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/filter/FamilyFilter.java b/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/filter/FamilyFilter.java
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..03e16c40883
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+++ b/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/filter/FamilyFilter.java
@@ -0,0 +1,67 @@
+/**
+ * Copyright 2010 The Apache Software Foundation
+ *
+ * Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one
+ * or more contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file
+ * distributed with this work for additional information
+ * regarding copyright ownership.  The ASF licenses this file
+ * to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the
+ * "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance
+ * with the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
+ *
+ *     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+ *
+ * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+ * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+ * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+ * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+ * limitations under the License.
+ */
+
+package org.apache.hadoop.hbase.filter;
+
+import org.apache.hadoop.hbase.KeyValue;
+
+/**
+ * This filter is used to filter based on the column family. It takes an
+ * operator (equal, greater, not equal, etc) and a byte [] comparator for the
+ * column family portion of a key.
+ * <p/>
+ * This filter can be wrapped with {@link org.apache.hadoop.hbase.filter.WhileMatchFilter} and {@link org.apache.hadoop.hbase.filter.SkipFilter}
+ * to add more control.
+ * <p/>
+ * Multiple filters can be combined using {@link org.apache.hadoop.hbase.filter.FilterList}.
+ * <p/>
+ * If an already known column family is looked for, use {@link org.apache.hadoop.hbase.client.Get#addFamily(byte[])}
+ * directly rather than a filter.
+ */
+public class FamilyFilter extends CompareFilter {
+  /**
+   * Writable constructor, do not use.
+   */
+  public FamilyFilter() {
+  }
+
+  /**
+   * Constructor.
+   *
+   * @param familyCompareOp  the compare op for column family matching
+   * @param familyComparator the comparator for column family matching
+   */
+  public FamilyFilter(final CompareOp familyCompareOp,
+                      final WritableByteArrayComparable familyComparator) {
+      super(familyCompareOp, familyComparator);
+  }
+
+  @Override
+  public ReturnCode filterKeyValue(KeyValue v) {
+    int familyLength = v.getFamilyLength();
+    if (familyLength > 0) {
+      if (doCompare(this.compareOp, this.comparator, v.getBuffer(),
+          v.getFamilyOffset(), familyLength)) {
+        return ReturnCode.SKIP;
+      }
+    }
+    return ReturnCode.INCLUDE;
+  }
+}