Acknowledgements

One thing that I neglected to include in the book was to acknowledge the assistance that I received in this project. Fortunately I can make amends by including my thanks here. 

Acknowledgements

Firstly my thanks to Karen. Like a lot of things in our family, if Karen hadn’t kickstarted things none of this would have happened. It was down to her efforts that we began the process of applying for Austrian citizenship. She made many of the early discoveries that fuelled our shared curiosity in Ludwig and Fanni’s stories and encouraged me to dig further. She patiently listened whenever I thundered down the stairs to report on my latest discoveries and did a convincing job of looking interested. She provided a sounding board on which to test out new hypotheses and prevented me from getting carried away with overly creative narratives. Without her help in proofreading the book would have included many more typos and clunky sentences than remain.

Secondly I owe a huge debt of thanks to my mother, Anne Wares. This project is merely a continuation of her earlier work. The family history that she wrote up twenty years ago pioneered the way and left tantalising leads for me to follow up and explore. Her two lever-arch folders also pointed the way towards how our family history could be written up combining genealogical records, anecdotes and photos. 

One of the best parts of this project was that we would meet once a week to discuss the latest things I had uncovered. The TV would be moved to the kitchen table so that I could  illustrate the stories with a mini show n’ tell presentation. Assembling the slide decks brought the dry facts to life and helped distil them into a story that could be told. These stories would later coalesce into the chapters of the book. The weekly fixture was something that both of us looked forward to and made the whole process infinitely more enjoyable for me.

I am also thankful for the interest the kids showed in the project. I may have physically joined them for dinner but they could tell my mind was elsewhere. For the best part of six months I was mentally inhabiting fin-de-siecle Vienna. I think the kids basically assumed I had gone mad but they humoured me. Like any self-respecting teenagers their starting position on any subject is that if Dad is interested in it it must be pretty boring. So the hint that they were perhaps mildly interested in learning more about their ancestors gave me a great deal of encouragement that this was a worthwhile endeavour. To my surprise and delight they even asked to read some early drafts and provided me with some remarkably insightful, constructive feedback which I found both hugely energising and the source of great pride