What’s in a name? A free trip to the Cayman Islands
The first man who settled on the territory was from Cornwall and the hunt is on for his UK descendants
IF your surname is Bodden or Bawden then it might be time to dig out the family tree – as you could be in line for a free holiday.
The Cayman Islands has launched an appeal to try to trace the descendants of its Cornish founding fathers, with the aim of flying them to the beach paradise to meet their distant relatives.
The search has revealed the two locations share everything from pasty recipes to a pirating past.
Eric Bush, the Cayman Islands’ representative to the UK, wants to be in touch with anyone who thinks they may be the descendants of a man named either Bodden or Bawden who left Cornwall in 1654 as part of Oliver Cromwell’s army to fight in the Anglo-Spanish war.
He was one of 3,000 marines who sailed from Portsmouth heading for the Caribbean to invade Jamaica. He never returned to the UK but instead became the first recorded settler of the previously uninhabited Cayman Islands in 1658. Forty-two years later, in 1700, his grandson Isaac Bodden was listed as its first official inhabitant.
The Caymans are one of the largest British Overseas Territories, with almost 60,000 inhabitants, and many people named Bodden still live there.
Mr Bush has discovered Cayman patties are based on a recipe similar to that of the Cornish pasty, and both areas hold regular pirate festivals to celebrate their smuggling past.
He said: “As native Caymanians, we are very aware of our British nationality and heritage from a young age. Wherever you go there are pictures of the Queen, and the islands’ ultimate authority is still the UK Government, represented by the governor.
“However, very few of us in Cayman were aware that our original British links are in fact from Cornwall, which also happens to be the part of the UK geographically closest to us.
“As we have been looking at the connection, what has been extraordinary is how similar our native cultures have been over the past 400 years or so.
“From aspects of both our language and dialect, to boat-building, to fishing, to salvage, to inventive cooking – Caymanians have been carrying on living like Cornishmen, but in the middle of the Caribbean.”
Mr Bush said if they find true descendants then they would want to “take them out to Cayman and reconnect them with their family there”.
With flights to the beach paradise starting at around £600, he may find he has a large number of people willing to lay claim to a little bit of history.
Records suggest that about 100 people in the UK have the name Bodden, while the alternative spelling is more common. The two spellings are thought to have arisen because the first settler could not write his name.
‘Cayman patties are based on a recipe similar to that of the Cornish pasty’