To Hamburg, Berlin, Postdam, Cologne, Trier, Bern, London, Le Havre, Langford and Louisville (North America). French and German Reformed, Roman Catholic. The following lineage is based on the works of Franz Gabain, Genealogical family trees of the families Gabain, von Gabain en DeGabain (Druk Goslar 1899) and Konstantin von Gabain, The von Gabain Family (handwriting from the archives of the French Reformed Congregation in Königsberg, East Prussia).
The original residence of the family can be traced back to the town of St. Rome de Sernon, about ten kilometres northeast of St. Affrique in the St. Affrique arrondissement of the southern French department of L’Avenron, where Jean Gabain lived at the end of the the seventeenth century. The Edict of Nantes (1598), which granted Reformed Protestants freedom of faith, was revoked by King Louis XIV on October 15th, 1685. Many therefore left France in order to remain true to their faith. Among the migrants was Jean Gabain, who settled in Payerne (Switzerland) around 1685 and then worked as a hatter in Halberstadt between 1700-1701. He became the founder of a family that quickly spread across the world through different tribes and branches.
Within the family one can distinguish a ‘Bremen branch’ and a ‘Prussian branch’. The Bremer branch has flourished since the eighteenth century mainly in the United Kingdom and France. The Prussian branch has provided the Prussian state for several generations with many officials and twenty-one officers. In addition, the Hamburg branch has also produced businessmen and lawyers.
The Prussian branch was created by Jean Gabain’s great-grandson Carl von Gabain, a royally distinguished Prussian major. However, his award is not mentioned in the files of the Prussian Secret State Archives in Berlin-Dahlem, nor in the family papers. The first mention of the designation ‘von’ comes from 1809, when Major Carl von Gabain’s son, Eduard, joined the cadet corps. His other son, chief forester Carl von Gabain, is also listed with the predicate ‘von’ in the files of 1828-1834. In addition, the major’s first wife, who died in Quedlinburg, is also registered in the registers as ‘von Gabain’.
Kneschke’s 1831 nobility dictionary reads: ‘Gabain, French aristocratic family who came to Prussia under the reign of Elector Friedrich Wilhelm of Brandenburg from where several sprouts joined the Royal Prussian army, while others devoted themselves to factory and production activities. In the book SchlichteGeschichten von Hesekiel, the Gabain family is mentioned in the novella Der Zwölfte, Gartenlaube 1861 No. 20. It describes the heroic death of Constantin von Gabain, who was shot by the French as a Schillchen officer in the city of Wesel.
