According to the genealogical treatise by Prince Ioann of Georgia (1768-1830), the ancestors of the family fled the Islamicization of Abkhazia to the eastern Georgian kingdom of Kakheti were they were elevated, in 1636, to the princely dignity and enfeoffed by the king Teimuraz I with the estate at Kardenakhi, which had hitherto been in possession of the extinct line of the Vachnadze family.