Joseph T. Richardson was born and raised and still resides in Decatur, Morgan County, Alabama, about fifteen miles from where his Dutton ancestors first settled ca. 1832 in southwest Morgan County. He has been researching the Dutton family for over a decade, since the genealogy bug bit him unexpectedly and viciously at the age of sixteen. He chose the Dutton family as the focus of his research because his Dutton family has always been the closest to his home and to his heart. He founded the DUTTON-ZACHARIAH mailing list in 1997 as a means to stay in touch with his many cousins, and the Zachariah Dutton Genealogy Web in 2002 in the hope of meeting more. He is a student of history at the University of Alabama in Huntsville.
Joseph is a descendant of Zachariah Dutton's oldest son William Dutton, through his son James Zachariah Dutton and his son Rev. Daniel Moody Dutton.