November is here, and that’s means that it is Movember – the month for mo’s! While I do contribute by donating to the cause as I believe it is an important one, I have decided to make November a month to highlight my moustached-ancestors.

I’ve spent some time time browsing through all the old family pictures that I have scanned, and have come up with a number of moustached men, so have decided to share some of them with you throughout November for Movember.

Once upon a time (isn’t that how you’re meant to start stories?) … I was out shopping with my grandma Evelyn Hannaford (nee Randell) at the local supermarket. Now there wasn’t anything particularly unusual about that, as it wasn’t uncommon event. But this particular day, has stuck in my mind … and all because of five words that were mentioned.

We shopped at Lobethal which is a small country town in Adelaide Hills, where you ALWAYS bump into others you know. And as expected that happened on this occasion. Now I don’t remember the lady who we met, but it was someone that grandma knew, but hadn’t seen for a while. And I was introduced to her, to which she said “She looks just like you”.

I know it sounds incredibly cliche to say that “you can find genealogy evidence in the most unlikely places”, and more to the point when you’re not even looking for it, but it can (and has) just happened to me.

Mr Lonetester and I were invited out to a friend’s birthday party recently which was held at the Tea Tree Gully Golf Club. And although I am a genealogy tragic, I must say that genealogy wasn’t exactly on my mind while I was there (except for the twice I was asked about how to search for people’s lost relatives, once they found out I work in the genealogy biz). Anyway aside from that, I was there enjoying the nibbles and chatter etc. of the party.

After thinking about what to do for the letter X for weeks, I still hadn’t come up with anything. So the fact that this post has even happened is a tribute to Wendy who commented on the Gould Genealogy Facebook page for the Family History Through the Alphabet, the letter X, and gave me the idea for this post.

X is for … Signatures

Actually technically this post is about the lack of signature, as in those that were illiterate and used X for a signature (ie. X is the mark of _________ ) was the actual wording that was used on certificates.