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From: "Walter Gabennesch" <>
Subject: [DNA] E3a Mosselle, Bining, Eastern France 1700
Date: Fri, 4 May 2007 13:55:15 -0400


Hi Eric,

No I am not an African American. I don't know what you would call me if one had to put a label on it. My E3a is not a result of the slave situation in this country. The only thing that is African is my Y-Chromosome. My ancestors came from England, Wales, Scotland, Germany and France. The one from France is the African. My family is from Cincinnati, Ohio, where I was born.

My E3a ancestor, Chistophe Gabennesch, was born in 1819 and came to the U.S. from Bining, Lorraine France where he was born. He came in 1848 via Le Harve to New Orleans final destination was Cincinnati, Ohio. Christophe's trade was a tailor and in Cincinnati he set up a family business making clothes. In France his ancestors are shown to
be stone masons.

We have traced my surname family back to Bining, France using civil and parish records to about 1700. The indication is that the first recorded birth date of an ancestor was 18 February 1720 in a town near Bining called Kalhausen. His surname was spelled Gabernist, given name was Michel. The father of Michel Gabernist was Christian Gabernist. I think the area at that time was called Lothringa and part of Germany. The next generation changed the spelling of the name to Gabenesch. All of this is according to the civil and church records of the area. They were Roman Catholic.

One individual that helped me with the records indicated that he thought they came there from the Austrian, Tyrol. He could offer no reason why or proof. Now I have a second opinion to that affect.


There are two families in France that we think are the same, though the spelling of the surname is slightly different, Gabenesch around Bining and Gabenisch around Nancy and Toulouse. It is extremely difficult to contact these individuals primarily because of the language barrier. The few that we have been able to contact, around Bining, have no interest.

My question is just how did an E3a get into central Europe by at least the mid 1600's. What meaning does the surname Gabernist have, what was a Gabernist. Did he somehow get to the Balkan Peninsula and then migrate
north? It makes no sense to me how they got that far into the interior of Europe. I can't conceive how someone from the south of Africa could have made that trip unless he was taken there for some purpose, but what?

The famous German Historian Theodore Mommsen translates Gabinish to the Roman name of Gabinius. That only confuses me.

The paper "Bantu and European Y-lineages in Sub-Saharan Africa 2002", infers that my African's mutation indicates that he did migrate south along the Western Shore of Africa and then possibly east to Zimbabwe. It is very hard to conceptualize the time. How far did he really go?


Walt Gabennesch


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