No, this isn’t like those Where’s Wally? books! Clearly this little chap is a porcupine but where in England is Porcupine?
I didn’t even know that there was a place called Porcupine until last week. Shame on me …. author of Tracing Your West Country Ancestors and not knowing that there is a place called Porcupine in Cornwall. Well, it is minute!
But when you search for the keyword porcupine in 1911, there are 46 results with many completely unrelated to Cornwall, including 21-year-old Nelly Beaumont in Holbeck, Yorkshire who was said to be a ‘porcupine filler‘ in a ‘Hackle Pin Manufacturer‘! Other references generally relate to names of properties like Porcupine, 48 Charing Cross Road, St Martin in the Fields, public houses and street names.
With just eight households, there were just 31 residents in Porcupine in 1911 – it’s near Tywardreath – and I can imagine, if someone did a one-place study on this hamlet, the people living there would not change enormously over the years. Maybe I might just do that? Porcupine is a pretty cool name for a one-place study don’t you think?
Are there any other animal names which are the names of places anywhere in the world? Are they all minuscule? Or are Elephant and Hippopotamus large, like their namesakes in the Animal Kingdom?
Look forward to hearing from genealogical colleagues and others across the globe on this one….
