John Ratliff was born in Augusta County, Virginia. His parents were Ruben Ratliff and Francis. He married Charlotte White (b. 1774) in about 1797. They had nine children. John died in Jackson County, Missouri. Descendants and relatives lived in Virginia, Missouri, Ohio and elsewhere.

Grayson County is famous in southwestern Virginia as the cradle of the New River settlements--perhaps the first settlements beyond the Alleghanies. The Nuckolls book is equally famous for its genealogies of the pioneer settlers of the county, which, typically, provide the names of the progenitors of the Grayson County line and their dates and places of migration and settlement, and then, in fluid progression, the names of all offspring in the direct and sometimes collateral lines of descent. Altogether somewhere in the neighborhood of 4,000 persons are named in the genealogies and indexed for ready reference.