Ancestry Pro Tools Enhanced shared matches, along with Full Text Search at FamilySearch.org for documentary evidence/information, improved the data analysis on these matches to an astonishing degree – said as someone who started this genealogical journey back in the SASE1-by postal mail request age!
With these new tools, the K.I. family was easily “treed,” finding the DNA-conclusive spot for P.Br. (having earlier had a P.B. match; hence the Br.): P.Br. is K.I. and P.B. and S.F.’s parent!
During my correspondence with M.F. (and the name-hint on a great-grandmother), M.F. made no mention of C.B., with whom I’d corresponded ages earlier. But, it was revealed that they are, in fact, half-siblings; and, very close cousins to the P.B. family.
M.F.’s Ancestry tree had also been updated to reflect who was asserted to be their parents. The ethnicity of the paternal side excluded a match with the Whitings; the maternal-maternal side reflected the previously-mentioned name in our correspondence, but genetic and documentary genealogy eliminated any common ancestor within the period that was reflected by the centiMorgans and proposed relationships.
Newly listed, however, was the name of the purported maternal grandfather.
James Garland Purdy
James Garland Purdy was born in 1929, in North Carolina, to Mildred Pencie White and John W Purdy, but census records indicate he and his mother had relocated to Richmond, Virginia, by the time of the 1940 census (having listed residence of 1935 in Roanoke, Virginia)2. Mildred Purdy neé White is listed as married, but John W Purdy remains in North Carolina with a son, daughter, and is enumerated with a different wife. Step-children are in the household, and it appears John and second wife Lula had a son, born about 1944, also named James per the 1950 census.
The 1950 census3 shows Mildred living at 1005 W Grace in Richmond, described as a widow; James Garland is not listed at her residence. A James G Purdy is found in the 1950 census, at least matching as to name and birth location: Purdy – James G, White male, age 31, married, born in North Carolina,4 is reported as an inmate in the Virginia State Penitentiary in Richmond. However, Mildred’s son James Garland, should be about 21 years old, so more research is needed.
A newspaper search indicates James Garland Purdy has had a series of run-ins with law enforcement by 1950: In 1948, 18-year-old James Garland Purdy…of 1000 block of West Grace St….was arrested on charges of hit-and-run and having possession of a stolen automobile.5 In May of 1948, he was sentenced two years in the penitentiary.6 In 1949, 22-year-old James Garland Purdy of the 2300 block of Grayland Avenue was sentenced to 30 days in jail on a reckless driving charge.7 By 1952, James Garland Purdy, 22, of the 1000 block of West Grace Street, received a 15-month sentence on five charges of stealing automobile tires. It appears from the preponderance of the evidence that this is the same James Garland Purdy in the Virginia State Penitentiary in April 1950 — at the same time James R Whiting should be listed in the census there.
A review of the genealogical documentary evidence and an extensive search through DNA matches to the SFW-descendant siblings (at Ancestry.com, FamilyTreeDNA.com, MyHeritage.com, 23andMe.com, as well as GEDmatch.com) located no possible common ancestors to Mildred Pencie White or John Purdy, so our attention turned back to the reported maternal grandmother, Barbara Lee Kidd (1932-2023).
Barbara Lee Kidd was the the third of four children and elder daughter of Doris Tremer and Walter B. Kidd. Barbara was born in June of 1932, and her father died in 1939. Doris is listed as an unemployed widow with her four young children in the 1940 census.8
In 1950, we find Doris and only her youngest child residing together (along with a boarder); they are living at 2327-A Grayland Avenue when they are enumerated on 14 April 1950. Barbara Kidd, about 18 years old at the time, is not enumerated on that date, nor at return visits to the apartments along Grayland Avenue through 19 April 1950, nor can she be located elsewhere in the federal census of 1950.
The person identified as M.B.’s mother (and Barbara’s daughter) in their tree was born in September 1951. Sadly, she had died in February 2023, and M.B.’s purported maternal grandmother, Barbara, died just a few weeks later.9 A review of the other children listed as siblings in the obituary was conducted; no other matches to the confirmed Whiting descendants was located.
Where were James Garland Purdy and James R Whiting in December 1950? And where could either, or both, be connected to the Whiting tree?
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Footnotes
- Self-addressed, stamped envelope. E.g., https://www.instructables.com/How-to-Make-a-SASE-with-Pictures/ — this SASE is not Secure Access Server Edge. ↩︎
- United States Federal Census. Year: 1940; Census Place: Richmond, Richmond City, Virginia; Roll: m-t0627-04325; Page: 4A; Enumeration District: 118-176 ↩︎
- 1950 United States Federal Census. National Archives at Washington, DC; Washington, D.C.; Seventeenth Census of the United States, 1950; Year: 1950; Census Place: Richmond, Richmond, Virginia; Roll: 746; Page: 5; Enumeration District: 119-263 ↩︎
- 1950 United States Federal Census. National Archives at Washington, DC; Washington, D.C.; Seventeenth Census of the United States, 1950; Year: 1950; Census Place: Richmond, Richmond, Virginia; Roll: 874; Page: 21; Enumeration District: 119-129 ↩︎
- Richmond Times-Dispatch, April 19, 1948, Page 11. via Newspapers.com (https://www.newspapers.com/article/richmond-times-dispatch-purdy-on-hit-and/152122911/ : accessed March 19, 2026). ↩︎
- The News and Advance, May 16, 1948, Page 15. via Newspapers.com (https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-news-and-advance/152122971/ : accessed March 19, 2026). ↩︎
- The Richmond News Leader, August 4, 1949, Page 15. via Newspapers.com (https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-richmond-news-leader-grand-jury-to-r/190428393/ : accessed March 19, 2026). ↩︎
- 1940 United States Federal Census. Year: 1940; Census Place: Richmond, Richmond City, Virginia; Roll: m-t0627-04319; Page: 10B; Enumeration District: 118-8 ↩︎
- Sullivan Funeral Homes; Publication Date: 2023; Publication Place: Hanover, Massachusetts, USA; URL: https://www.sullivanfuneralhomes.com/obituary/barbara-caswell : accessed March 19, 2026. ↩︎