America is the center of origin of the annual sunflower Helianthus annuus L . However as an oil crop sunflower was first cultivated in Russia. The seeds of first sunflower varieties contained 28'30 % oil. The varieties with high oil content (47'51 % oil in the seed) VNIIMK 6540 (k-1872) VNIIMK 8883 (k-1961) VNIIMK 8931 (k-1942) Armavirskii 1813 (k-1588) Armavirskii 3497 (k-1960) Armavirets (k-2116) and Peredovik (k-2051) were created based on the research work carried out by V.S. Pustovoyt his associates and followers. These and other domestic varieties have become basic for the lines created with the purpose of heterotic hybrid production on the basis of cytoplasmic male sterility (CMS) all over the world. The genealogy of lines is not always clear. At the same time the material used by breeding institutions and companies is characterized by increasingly low genetic diversity. The knowledge on the genealogy of lines promotes fuller employment of the genetic potential of cultivated sunflower. The article reports the data on the lines created by the researchers of the N.I. Vavilov All-Russian Institute of Plant Genetic Resources (VIR) at the Kuban Experiment Station in the period from 1970 to 2015 as well as the data obtained by foreign researchers which we are familiar with on the lines obtained using Russian varieties. The lines were created by repeated self-pollination and progeny selection for morphological features CMS the ability to restore pollen fertility the length of vegetation period and resistance to downy mildew after each self-pollination event. As a rule uniform lines were obtained 7'8 generations after self-pollination. The data on the genealogy of 38 lines created by the VIR researchers 2 VNIIMK lines and 16 foreign lines as well as the information on the origin of the PET1 CMS source are presented.