Dr Anne has been mixed up in an amazing adventure these last four weeks which has taken her around Central Europe.
It is an area steeped in history - the Holy Roman Empire, August the Strong, the Hapsburgs, Napoleon, Hitler, the Soviets. For centuries there have been wars and rumours of wars, uprisings and rumours of uprisings. There have been the disasterous results affecting millions of people.
Who was there? Slavs... Sorbs... Germans... Prussians... Soviets... Who was fighting who? How did the boundaries change? What was the impact on the people?
It was a longstanding commitment for Dr Anne to go with Lois to follow in the footsteps of her ancestors - the Kleinigs, the Zwars, the Pecks and the Wursts. Although records were destroyed in the Nazi and Soviet eras the ladies were able to visit the villages and museums and walk the walk.
Johann Zwar (Lois' great grandfather) led a party of 100 people from the Bautzen area to Hamburg and then to South Australia on the Helena in 1850. Evidence was found in the Sorb Museum in Bautzen.
How different life would have been for Lois if the migrations had not taken place...
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