However, historian Andrey Vvedensky concluded in his research on the family's genealogy, that they should have been hailing from wealthy Pomor peasants (i.e. Russians from Russia's subarctic north, in the region of the White Sea).

[1] The family's earliest ancestor was named Spiridon; he lived during the rule of Duke Dmitry Donskoy and was mentioned in the 1390s.

[1] His grandson, Luka Kuzmich Stroganov, was a renter of royal properties in the region of the Northern Dvina; he is claimed to have redeemed Duke Vasily II of Moscow from Tatar imprisonment in 1445.

[1] His son, Fyodor Lukich Stroganov (d. 1497), the latest common ancestor of the family, settled in Solvychegodsk (also in the Russian north).

He also had six sons: Stefan, Joseph (Osip), Vladimir, Ivan nicknamed Vyshnyak, Afanasy and Anikey, and a daughter named Maura.

[2] In 1517, elder brothers, Stefan, Joseph and Vladimir Stroganov, received a wood and a salt mine in Ustyug district.

In 1558, Ivan the Terrible granted to Anikey Stroganov and his successors large estates in what was at the time the eastern edge of Russian settlement, along the Kama and Chusovaya Rivers.

[citation needed] In 1566, at their own request, their lands were included in the "oprichnina", the territory within Russia under the direct authority of Ivan the Terrible.

Seizing lands from the local population by conquest and colonizing them with incoming Russian peasants, the Stroganovs developed farming, hunting, saltworks, fishing, and ore mining in these areas.

[citation needed] Yakov Anikeevich Stroganov (1528–1577) made Ivan the Terrible forbid the English to trade near Solvychegodsk; he, alongside his brothers, received the right to organize military attacks on Siberian tribes and rulers.

[4] Grigory Anikeevich Stroganov (1533–1577) received large lands in the basin of the Kama river, in the region of Perm.

In the early 17th century, owing to the Turmoil, they strengthened their positions by sponsoring the central government's struggle against claimants to the throne and Polish invaders.

[7] During the period of Polish intervention in the early 17th century, the Stroganovs offered humanitarian and military support to the Russian government (some 842,000 rubles just in terms of money), for which they received the title of 'eminent men' (imenitye lyudi) in 1610, and allowed official reference with the 'vich' ending to their paternal names, as was only meant for the members of the royal court.

Together with the new title, the received unprecedented privileges for people of trading class: they were subject only to the royal judgement, allowed founding towns and building fortresses, owning armed troops and forging cannons, organizing military campaigns against Siberian rulers and duty-free trade with Asian nations.

[citation needed] A number of remarkable Baroque churches throughout Russia were built by the Stroganov family in the late 17th and early 18th century.

[citation needed] By the late 17th century the living conditions of the poor branch of the Stroganovs were scarcely distinguishable from those of common peasants.

[12] The famous lawyer Maklakov initiated research to prove a relationship between the late count and the Stroganovs from Tsyrennikovo.

Stroganov Palace (now one of the buildings of the State Russian Museum) is among the chief sights of Nevsky Prospekt in Saint Petersburg.

His death stirred litigation for his fortune between his relations in female lines and the senior unnoble descendants of the Stroganov family.

[citation needed] The lineage traced to the youngest brother, Anikey Stroganov, (the ennobled branch) died out in male line in 1923.