A number of his descendants were businessmen, land owners, civil servants and politicians.

The family originated in Cappeln near Wildeshausen in Oldenburg in Lower Saxony, Germany with Johan von Cappelen [no] (1627–1688), who immigrated to Norway from Bremen in 1653.

Johan von Cappelen bought several properties and ended as a bailiff in Lier, Buskerud County, Norway.

[1] The family coat of arms were lawfully assumed in Norway in 1683: The shield is parted in two fields, the first and upper one having the mother pelican feeding its young with its own blood (a pelican in its piety), and the second field has three blooming roses with leaves and stems.

On top of the shield is a helmet with a crest: two buffalo horns and between them the symbol of Fortune being a naked woman holding a ship's sail in her hands and standing on an orb.