Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata was born to Nusserwanji and Jeevanbai Tata on 3 March 1839 in Navsari, a city in the south Gujarat. Jamsetji Tata and his family were a part of the minority group of Zoroastrians, or Parsees, who came to India from fleeing the persecution of Zoroastrians by muslims in Iran. He was born in a respectable, but poor family of priests. His father, Nusserwanji, was the first businessman in a family of Parsi Zoroastrian priests. He broke the tradition to become the first member of the family to start a business. He started an export trading firm in Mumbai. Unlike other Zoroastrians, Jamsetji Tata had a formal Western education because his parents saw that he was gifted with special mental arithmetic from a young age. However, in order for him to have a more modern education, he was later sent to Bombay.