Timofey Evseevich Evseev was born on February 1, 1887, in the village of Az'yel, in the Morokinsky volost of the Tsarevokokshay district of the Kazan province, now part of the Morokinsky district of the Republic of Mari El, into a family of poor peasants. From childhood, he was left without a mother and was raised by his grandmother, experiencing all the hardships of peasant life and dreaming of education. He successfully graduated from the parish school in his native village and then studied at the Rongan secondary school in 1902 and 1904, working as a shepherd or laborer during the holidays.

After completing his studies, Evseev, being one of the best students, passed the exam for the title of primary school teacher and began working in the schools of Kuzhnur and Polanur in the Tsarevokokshay district. After the 1917 revolution, he taught for about two years in the village of Az'yel, and then in the village of Ronga in the Krasnokokshay canton of the Mari Autonomous Region. At the end of 1924, Evseev began working at the Mari Regional Museum and soon became its head.

In early 1930, Evseev left the museum due to accusations of connections with 'old local historians' and was exiled for three years to Nizhny Novgorod. He then worked at the Morokinsky district newspaper 'Communism Turns', served as an accountant for a collective farm in his native village, engaged in the transcription of folklore materials in the language and literature sector of MariNII, and was an employee of the Mari Regional Department of Public Education and the museum until his arrest in 1937.

Evseev began his local history activities by meeting Finnish scholars, the Vihmann couple, who collected materials on the language, folklore, and culture of the Mari people in 1905 and 1906. In June 1906, they met with Evseev in Morki and recommended him as a translator. With his help, valuable linguistic and ethnographic data were collected. Later, Evseev met other Finnish scholars, such as Uno Sirelius and Axel Heikel, which inspired him to study the culture of the Mari people. He collected folklore and ethnographic materials on assignments from the Finno-Ugric Society, and his collections contain 18 volumes of Evseev's manuscripts. He actively engaged in collecting ethnographic data, popularizing knowledge, and studying the culture of his people, collaborating with the National Museum and the Finno-Ugric Society of Finland. The National Museum of Finland holds 15 collections collected by Evseev, including clothing, jewelry, tools, embroidery, household items, and musical instruments.

In 1908, Evseev received drawing lessons and methodological training on collecting ethnographic and folklore material in Finland, as well as skills in photography. While working at the Polanur school, he continued to study photography and became an illustrator of the Mari people's way of life. From 1909, he sent photographs to the Finno-Ugric Society, and these pre-revolutionary photographs of Mari culture are stored in the National Museum of Finland. The photographs were used to illustrate his manuscripts on hunting, fishing, housing, and clothing. The museum's collection number 132 contains 239 photographs capturing buildings, interiors, tools, and costumes of the Mari people. Many of them were used by Finnish researchers in articles about the culture of Finno-Ugric peoples. Unique are the photos demonstrating various methods of hunting, fishing, and beekeeping.

Evseev researched the evolution of housing and buildings, searching for ancient structures in the Mari region. He photographed the processes of hemp processing and weaving, capturing all technological stages: softening hemp, scutching, spinning, winding threads, and weaving. These photographs were included in the first book by I. Lehtinen dedicated to Evseev's manuscripts on domestic weaving and Mari clothing. Evseev followed methodological requirements for ethnographic photography, which is valuable for studying material culture. His photographs were used in local publications.

From 1924, Evseev was the head of the Mari Regional Museum, where he was able to realize his talent as a collector and researcher. He gathered numerous ethnographic exhibits, increased the number of departments, acquired spacious premises, and strengthened the museum's material base. Evseev composed questionnaires for collecting ethnographic material, but they were not published. In 1925 and the 1930s, he conducted several expeditions, enriching the museum's collections. His photographs were used in exhibitions and displays at the museum. Evseev's materials were published in local publications, where he advocated for the restructuring of Mari village life. In the late 1920s, he prepared several works, including a photo album on Mari clothing and ethnographic essays on fishing, hunting, and beekeeping, which were not published.

Since 1926, under his leadership, the Mari Society of Local Historians began operating in Krasnokokshay. Evseev actively promoted local history knowledge in the press and at conferences. At his initiative, annual ethnographic and folklore expeditions were conducted.

In 1926, Evseev was on a scientific internship in Finland, where he deepened his knowledge of organizing museum work and expeditions. This contributed to the improvement of the museum and local history society's work.

In the late 1920s and early 1930s, difficult times came for local historians and museum workers. Their activities had to conform to political and ideological principles, emphasizing the successes of socialist construction. Evseev's work and the museum did not meet these requirements and were criticized. A struggle against local 'bourgeois nationalism' began in the party line, accompanied by accusations of connections with 'interventionist circles' in Finland. Evseev became a convenient figure for 'exposure' and was arrested on January 25, 1931, accused of espionage connections with Finland. He tried to prove that his contacts with Finns were purely scientific, but investigators forced him to confess to being a 'Finnish agent.' Evseev reported his impressions of Finland to colleagues, who were also arrested and grouped as 'federalists,' allegedly seeking to create a Finno-Ugric Federation under the protection of Finland. Evseev and others were sentenced to exile for three years. On September 25, 1937, Evseev was arrested again, and on November 10, 1937, the NKVD troika of the Mari ASSR sentenced him to execution, which was carried out on November 11.