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The von Gadow Family

The Gadows belong to the native nobility of the county of Ruppin, with an ancestral seat of the same name near Wittstock, Prignitz.

As one of the few families of the ancient nobility with only one branch, it was able to keep its property until 1945. The Gadows first appear in recorded history in 1333 with Henning von Gadow (Leipzig, registry of the bailiwick of Landsberg, folio 23, number 2). Until 1701 the family owned property in the Prignitz area (Protzen, Stöffin, etc., which as a result of the Thirty Years’ War had to be sold). With the marriage of Hans-Jürgen von Gadow (born 1674) to Anna-Margarethe von Behr (daughter of Hermann Volrath von Behr and his wife Ilsabe Dorothea von Owstien of the Quilow line) on 5 March 1701 in Neukahlen the von Gadow family acquired land in the Franzburg district in then-Swedish Western Pomerania. This comprised the estates Hugoldsdorf with Neuhof, Rönkendorf, Drechow, Derschendorf, and Eixen. In 1805 Friedrich von Gadow (born 1774) acquired the Gross Potrems estate of 620 hectares with the outlying property of Wendorf (200 hectares) near Laage in Mecklenburg. In 1778 the family was elevated to the lower nobility of Mecklenburg with recognition of its origin in the ancient nobility and the right to a seat in the parliament of Mecklenburg.

Until the dispossession and expulsion of the von Gadow family in 1945-1946 the following estates were in its possession:

Hugoldsdorf with Neuhof, 612 hectares according to Niekammer’s address book of agricultural estates (1939);
Rönkendorf, 396 hectares according to Niekammer;
Drechow, 431 hectares according to Niekammer.

Estates:

Drechow
Groß Potrems
Hugoldsdorf
Rönkendorf