Originally named
Ballestrero di Castellengo, they are first attested to as
patrician merchants in the sixteenth century. At the end of the seventeenth century, Marco Francesco Antonio Ballestrero was enfeoffed with the County of Montalenghe, near
Turin. His son, Count Giovanni Angelo Battista Ballestrero, moved to Germany, taking the name Johann Baptist von Ballestrem and eventually joining the Prussian officer corps. Johann married into the wealthy Stechow family, leading the German Ballestrems to eventually inherit the lucrative
Plawniowitz estate in
Silesia, then part of
Prussia and now part of
Poland. In 1742, the family was raised to the title of
Count. ==Notable members==