Preface On the following pages, the history of the ZWIR T Z families, as been documented or passed down to descendants and as being of common interest, will be described in broad terms. A detailed portrayal would not only go beyond scope but would jeopardise privacy of living descendants of the family. For the very same reason, the description of the family‘s history ends approximately with year 1950. Only those locations, individuals and events will be refered to, which at that time or in the aftermath, were of importance for the further history of the ZWIR T Z families and with that could also be helpful for a reader to investigate his/her own history and to prove a family relationship. For the same purpose, for each location mentioned, surnames of those local families will be listed, whose members had an evident family relaionship with a member of a ZWIR T Z family. Together with the overview of the Family Geography and the Family Album both also provided on this homepage, the reader should be able to obtain an adequate overall picture of the history of the ZWIR T Z families. In addition to the description of the family‘s history, one or the other „excursus“ will be offered to provide the historic political, economical or societal context of the respective epoch in relation to the described family situation and its further development.