Accessing Families table via Java API - possible?

We are currently using the Java API to develop a web viewable display of our Family hierarchy and custom fields associated with the Family hierarchy/table.

I get the following error when trying to read the table:

Table with Code 'Families' does not exist in the repository 'eCatalog' or is one of the system table (e.g. Workflows) that is not exposed in repository schema

I have also interrogated the schema to get a listing of the available tables and do not see the Families table in the list:

	T1	Products
	T4	Masks
	T5	Named Searches
	T6	Categories
	T7	Images
	T8	Text Blocks
	T9	Copy Blocks
	T10	Text HTMLs
	T11	PDFs
	T13	Sounds
	T14	Videos
	T15	Binary Objects
	... (custom tables removed from list)

We have also started to look at possibly using the Publisher API. Thoughts?

Thanks in advance.