Background
Alexey Peesemsky was born on his father's estate, in the province of Kostroma, Russian Empire (now Russia) on the 22nd of March 1820.
In his autobiography he describes his family as belonging to the ancientRussian nobility, but his more immediate progenitors were all very poor, and unable to read or write. His grandfather ploughed the fields as a simple peasant, and his father, as Peesemsky himself said, was washed and clothed by a rich relative, and placed as a soldier in the army, from which he retired as a major after thirty years' service.