Have the remains of the Imperial Family been found?

[Anna was Franziska]

Originally Posted by Russophile

Now that's interesting genetics.
Does anybody know what they, the Romanovs did? Were they late bloomers or early growers?

Of course not. I just mentioned my family because you did and I wanted to show the other side of how people develop.

[Russophile]

I think that would be an interesting factor to add to the information about the bones. Can never have too much information in this case!

[BorisRom]

Interfax today:
http://www.interfax-religion.ru/?act=news&div=25542
(in my translation, in reduction)
<<The Hermitage is ready to give for examination a shirt of Nicholas II

St.-Petersburg. On July, 18th. InterFax - the State Hermitage is ready to give Nicholas's II shirt on which spots of blood of tsar were kept, for genetic comparison with the identified remains of cesarevitch Alexey and great princess Maria.
"The Investigatory group with experts came to the Hermitage several weeks ago, and they looked up and down this shirt. The shirt will be given to them when in the Hermitage the corresponding letter will act. However the Hermitage did not get such letter till now", - the press-service of the Hermitage has informed "Interfax".
The shirt is stored here since 1941 and, according to all documents, with 80 percent probability really belonged to Nicholas II.
It is supposed, that the Russian scientists in July of this year will start carrying out of one more genetic research.
As the chief of the Sverdlovsk regional bureau of judicial medical examination N.Nevolin has informed earlier, the remains of the skeleton №4 of the first Ekaterinburg burial place will compare to spots of blood on this shirt of Nikolay Aleksandrovich Romanov in which he was during attempt at him in 1891 in Japan. Now this shirt is in the Hermitage.
>>.
*********************************************
My comment: I don't know how this shirt has appeared in the Hermitage in 1941 and why experts of the Hermitage estimate probability of as 80 % that it belonged to Nicholas in 1891. Yesterday the state telechannel RTR has shown this white shirt: I saw on it Nicholas's monograms and some spots of blood (dark\black spots in the size up to 5-10 sm on a collar and on the right sleeve).

[Anna was Franziska]

The Japan samples have been tested before, and do not match the bones or blood from Nicholas's relatives such as Xenia Sfris. It's highly likely that while the shirt may belong to him, it has had so much contamination over the years it's not valuable for DNA testing anymore (like the AA slide from 1951) Back in 1891 no one preserved anything in sterile environs and had no idea DNA testing would ever exist. The first time a strange person handled it and sweated on it, it became useless. Just imagine how many times it's been moved and handled in 117 years.

[lucien]

Originally Posted by Anna was Franziska

The Japan samples have been tested before, and do not match the bones or blood from Nicholas's relatives such as Xenia Sfris. It's highly likely that while the shirt may belong to him, it has had so much contamination over the years it's not valuable for DNA testing anymore (like the AA slide from 1951) Back in 1891 no one preserved anything in sterile environs and had no idea DNA testing would ever exist. The first time a strange person handled it and sweated on it, it became useless. Just imagine how many times it's been moved and handled in 117 years.

Agree Anna,the shirt is useless,and besides...a 80% chance it really did belong to Nicky,and hundreds of,more or less,dirty hands....?It's got to be better then that.Or not,we don't need that shirt to prove anything,all the prove is there already,as we've sadly came to know.No clue which bulb at the Hermitage came up with these lines over a wodka or two...but ofcourse they too wish to be mentioned later as being extremely helpfull in the unveiling research in the outcome concerning the digging in the mud just outside Ekaterinenburg.
They all want a ride now,wait and see.....

[AGRBear]

Speaking of shirts. What ever happen to the "sailor shirt" which they found in the pits in July. I believe it was reported earlier that they believed it was Alexei's.

AGRBear

[Michael HR]

Sailor shirt? I had no idea they had found one, how intresting. Was not Alexis wearing an army shirt when he was killed? One to ponder

[AGRBear]

It was thought by some posters that Alexei was wearing his sailor shirt, like the one found in the two pits last July. Many of us disagreed because Alexei was no longer wearing sailor shirts but the kaki uniform like his father which would have meant he was wearing the army shirt. Then, it was said that it was reported that the shirt may have just been thrown into the grave by one of the men in the buriel detail. But that doesn't make sense either because Yurovsky didn't want anything in the grave which would identify any of the Romanovs as being the Romanovs.

There is, however, testimonies only ten of the victims were stripped. One or two people claimed Alexei's body was not completely stripped. They claim his shirt was not taken off of him. I'm sure I could track down the sources of the testimonies of the Bolsheviks if you'd like them. I don't recall the name of the thread this was discussed on AP but it was just after the news about the two remains found in the two pits broke last July. Perhaps someone can refreshen my memory and give others a chance to read what was said.

AGRBear

PS Found the post on the thread >>The Imperial Children's Remains Discovered, FAQs. Please Read. Page 1, post 1:

FA for Alexander Palace:>> The Forensic Director of Medicine of Sverdlovsk Mr Nevoline clarified that the forensic scientists had also received seven fragments of teeth, three bullets of a weapon with short standard cannon and a fragment of fabric of garment.
G.I. Sukhorukov, who was assigned to go help dispose of the corpses of the Royal Family the next morning in 1918. On April 3, 1928 his memoir:... "It was necessary to begin digging up the corpses (after the attempt to burn them the previous night)...the first thing we came across was the leg of the last Nicholas. He was removed successfully, and then all the others. To be precise, it can be said that everybody was naked, except for the heir, who had on a sailor shirt but no trousers."<<

[Michael HR]

Maybe he made a mistake as everyone else seems to have mentioned a army shirt as his Father was wearing. Maybe in the 10 years he simply got it wrong. Unless he was wearing this shirt under thr army shirt as there is mention that the Heir was also wearing an under cloth which had items hidden in like his sisters and "protected" him from the bullets, at least at first. Perhaps this was the shirt they mentioned?

[BorisRom]

Originally Posted by lucien

Agree Anna,the shirt is useless,and besides...a 80% chance it really did belong to Nicky,and hundreds of,more or less,dirty hands....?It's got to be better then that.Or not,we don't need that shirt to prove anything,all the prove is there already,as we've sadly came to know.No clue which bulb at the Hermitage came up with these lines over a wodka or two...but ofcourse they too wish to be mentioned later as being extremely helpfull in the unveiling research in the outcome concerning the digging in the mud just outside Ekaterinenburg.
They all want a ride now,wait and see.....

Lucien,
I am surprised by your post. Such impression, that you are in advance assured (on 100 %) in negative result of this comparison.

[Anna was Franziska]

I just got finished watching the new National Geographic Explorer episode "Finding Anastasia". At the end, they showed some of the DNA results in chart form. I think it must have been nuclear DNA of Nicholas and Alexandra. They showed how one body, a male, matched up on so many lines to both N and A, proving he was their son. The second body, a girl, also matched both parents, and matched the boy so closely that the scientist said it would be 'more than a million to one chance' they were not siblings. With that good of a match, there's no more doubt. They know for sure they have Alexei because he was the only son, and while they can't prove if the burned body is AN or Maria, they know for sure all the bodies are accounted for and no one got away.

[J Kendrick]

A hypothetical problem...
There were seven teeth in this discovery of last summer. We also know
that the victims may have been hit by rifle butts in the half-cellar
room at Ipatiev...

So...

Let us suppose for a moment that when Yurovsky's men had buried the
bodies that they did have in Pigs Meadow... that they had also swept a
number of loose teeth off the deck of the truck that were there as a
result of the victims having been hit in the face with rifle butts and
thrown them in the pit as well... but *after* the body... or bodies...
of the missing had been carried away by persons unknown.

Then the researchers would now have the DNA evidence that could allow
them to make their claim that all of the family had been found...

... but we could still be missing a Romanov or two...

... because teeth alone do not prove death.

Thoughts, anyone?

JK

[Anna was Franziska]

The problem with that theory is that the burned bodies were first. When they realized they didn't have time to dismember and burn them all before dawn and were afraid of getting caught when the sun came up they dumped the rest of the bodies in the other hole and poured acid on top of them. Any residue left over would have been in the second grave, not the first.

Also if you see the National Geographic show, it wasn't just the teeth. They had other bone fragments and ground parts of the bone up into fine powder. It looked like they used the pelvis of the girl and the arm/shoulder of the boy. There were clearly two sets of remains since one had a Y and one had only X chromosomes. The Y couldn't be anyone but Alexei since his nuclear DNA was a perfect match to elements in the nuclear DNA patterns of both parents. The two bodies were proven to be siblings and the biological children of N and A.

[AGRBear]

Very earlier in the Nat. Geo. special, they mentioned that they would need to prove that the bones of the female found in the new grave in 2007 were not from the mass grave.

They never answered this question at the end of the special. The fellow who was working on the DNA/mtDNA just flatly stated that the two remains found in the two pits this last summer (July 2007) were siblings. And that was that. Okay. But, Alexei had four siblings, three of whom we know about in the mass grave. So, does the DNA/mtDNA show us that there were four female siblings with their own markers? Maybe, I missed that part.

I, also, noticed, the special continued to voice that it was either Anastasia or Marie in the pit.

I couldn't help but zero in on the fact that the pork ribs which the scientist burned for 1 hour then 3 hours did not show the same damage as found on the bones in the two pits.

All in all, I wished they had shown us all the items found.

Nor could I help being annoyed at the Russians and their treatment of the bones which they exposed time and time again and didn't seem to be worried about contamination which did concern our two Americans.

What were the names of our two Americans?

Wish I would have taped the special. Oh well, guess it'll be on the market soon and I'll have a copy then.

AGRBear

[Michael HR]

Following on from what bear said would it not be possible to look at the DNA of the females found and compare them against each other. We know that sisters will have DNA that is very alike but not quite a 100% match to each other but will match mtDNA. If we look at the sibling DNA and compare against each other it should show that each has a mtDNA match to the Empress and that each DNA is very alike but not identical and this would show that there were 4 siblings of the female line in the grave(s) and acount for each of the GD's. So far as the male DNA found in the second grave I do not see who else this could be but Alexis as there is a mtDNA match to the Empress and there is no one else that it could be unless I have missed something.

[Anna was Franziska]

Originally Posted by AGRBear

The fellow who was working on the DNA/mtDNA just flatly stated that the two remains found in the two pits this last summer (July 2007) were siblings. And that was that. Okay. But, Alexei had four siblings, three of whom we know about in the mass grave. So, does the DNA/mtDNA show us that there were four female siblings with their own markers? Maybe, I missed that part.

No that was not that. I have it on tape and when I have time I can transcribe exactly what he said. I know they said that both samples were compared to the Tsar and Tsarina and both the male (y) and the female (x) were the biological children of both. Then they said 'this is their son' and compared the boy and girl and said they were siblings. Finally they said that it didn't matter if it was AN or Maria because they were all now accounted for.

The grasping at straws theory that these are scraps from the other grave is false for two reasons, one, as shown in the show based on Bolshevik reports, the burned grave was FIRST! It was covered up and over with before they put the other bodies in the mass grave. As I explained to JK over the teeth, if there had been any residue it would have gone in the mass grave not the burn pit. Also the bones in the burn pit show signs of fire damage the others did not. The Bolsheviks said they burned 2 bodies and buried them separately. This is what has been found. Why is this so hard to believe or understand.

What were the names of our two Americans?


AGRBear

One was Dr. Falsetti the same man who challenged the Russian ID of Anastasia in the 1991 grave and Maria being missing, in 2000 along with Maples and Dr. Diane French. I don't know the other off hand.

[Anna was Franziska]

Originally Posted by Michael HR

So far as the male DNA found in the second grave I do not see who else this could be but Alexis as there is a mtDNA match to the Empress and there is no one else that it could be unless I have missed something.

No there is no one else it could be, there is only one boy who shares DNA markers from both Nicholas and Alexandra. As the scientists in the show said, this is Alexei, this is their son. Since there was only one son there's no doubt. Even though they can't ID the girl for sure they do know all four bodies have been found. They had a partial pelvis bone of a female which is what they used to extract the DNA sample. All the other bodies in the 1991 grave still had their pelvis bone. This was the burned remains of the fourth daughter.