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The Ragdoll got its start through a woman named Ann Baker in Riverside, California in the 1960's.  According to her records, the foundation queen was her neighbor’s non-pedigree, white, longhaired female cat named Josephine, who may or may not have been an Angora.

Josephine was mated to another non-pedigree black/brown Persian-type tom called Beauty and the resulting offspring was a tom Ann Baker called Daddy Warbucks.   Josephine was then mated with a self-colored black tom, cleverly named Blackie, producing a self colored black female named Buckwheat. 

Buckwheat and Daddy Warbucks then produced four kittens on July 3rd, 1965 consisting of  two self colored and two pointed kittens. The self colored kittens were Gueber, a black male and Mitts, a black mitted male.  The pointed kittens were Tiki, (or Toni) a chocolate point female and Kyoto, a seal mitted male.

Ann Baker then registered Tiki and Kyoto as Raggedy Ann Tiki and Raggedy Ann Kyoto as Ragdolls with the National Cat Fanciers Association and Gueber and Mitts were likewise registered with NHCF as experimental Persians.  Thus, when you hear reference to the Ragdoll Foundation cats, they are: Josephine, Blackie, Daddy Warbucks and Buckwheat.  

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Back to the issue of two distinct pattern variations, between the pointed and the non-pointed.  As you can easily see above, the original cats were a mixed lot of coat colors.  All of the foundation cats were registered in one fashion or another, albeit two different registries,  and all were offspring from the common queen, Josephine.  Popularity started dictating the desire for the pointed cats resulting in a decline in interest for the non-pointed cats.  However, that has recently changed and there is an awakening amongst breeders to bring the non-pointed cats back into the fold.  

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Although we  raise only pointed Ragdolls, our first two Ragdolls were from the non-pointed group (Dillon is an orange tabby and Sachi black and white).  Their genealogy can be traced back to Josephine.  Their behavior, personalities and size are all very clearly Ragdoll.   (Editor’s note: There are some silly, highly vocal “purists” out there that don’t seem to want to recognize the science behind this color issue.  Please give consideration to logic rather than meritless opinion.)