In view of the announcement by the General Register Office that it intends
to withdraw the public indexes to the register of adopted children and
replace them with a database, I have extracted the Caddy entries from them.
Including variants with a double d, there are twenty-seven in all. I
have, though, noted Cadeys and Cadys as well, lest I should later regret
not having done so.
I could easily list them all in a message to the list, but have restrained
myself from fear of receiving complaints about listing living Caddys. It
is likely that most of them have survived, whether or not they still bear
that name.
I had better add a few facts in order to disappoint anyone who is
unfamiliar with the indexes. Adoption began in England and Wales in 1927.
The indexes give the full adoptive name of the child and no further
information on the parents. Years of birth are given if the adoption took
place after 1946. No places of birth or adoption are stated. At least the
year of the entry is given in each case.
A certificate obtained from this register will give details of the
adoption, including the adoptive parents, but the only pre-adoption details
are the child's date, and possibly place, of birth. It is not possible to
use this information to trace the child's original identity unless one has
either information obtained elsewhere or a court order. The details may be
of use, though, in identifying a Caddy who appears on the scene, perhaps by
marrying or dying, without apparently having been born. One or two look to
me (on the basis of other information) like probable step-parent adoptions.
It was interesting to note the increase in the sizes of the indexes until a
few years ago, when they started to get smaller.
Jeremy Wilkes