One of the issues I’ve had in learning my dad’s story is knowing what path the wagon train took from Gnadenfeld to Poland.  My grandmother had an idea of where they went but I wanted to know a much more exact route.

One night working with my nephew, Tyler, I tripped over a book on Google pages entitled “Path of Thorns” by Jacob A. Neufeld.  Apparently, this man lived in Gnadenfeld as an adult and wrote a detailed diary regarding the wagon train and events of the entire village’s trek from Ukraine to Poland.  Literally, a day to day description of where and what happened!  It was a remarkable find.  If you are interested, this book can be purchased at Amazon.  Well worth the read.

Once in Poland, as ethnic Germans, the villagers of Gnadenfeld were distributed to different places across the western part of Poland and thus the story of my family and Neufeld’s family diverges.  “Path of Thorns” is where I am getting the information to put together the map I posted yesterday.  That was a test, by the way, to see how Google maps, WordPress, Twitter and Facebook all worked together.

Buy “Path of Thorns” on Amazon.