2009 Identification of the remains found in July 2007

[AGRBear]

Isn't this what I've been saying for the last year and five months?

I'd use a stronger word than "iffy".

AND, I am, now, going to stress even more that they need to prove there are four markers. If they do not then there is no proof that there are four grand duchesses found.

Another little twist of misinformation found in the latest annoucement:

>>The remains of the Russian royal family were first found in 1979, but
were buried again on orders from the local administration.<<

From what we've been told, there was no one in the local administration who knew that the grave had been secretly found by Avdonin and Ryabov in May of 1979 or in May 1980 when they returned the skulls and other bones in a box and placed it back into the mass grave.

Let me add Ryabov's quotes found on p. 33 of Massie's THE ROMANOVS FINAL CHAPTER:

>>All of them were frightened. "I admit that our interference in this pit was barbaric, "Ryabov said, "It was horrible. But we did not have the time, we did not have the instruments, and, of course we were controlled by fear... fear that we would be found out."<<

p. 34
>>In the summer of 1980 Avdonin and Ryabov, frustrated and still afraid of the consequences of their discovery, decided to return the three skulls to the grave. They were placed in a wooden box with a cooper icon and returned to the site.<<

Farther down the same page:

>>Avdonin and Ryabov again discussed at length what they should do with the information they had discovered. they could not tell anyone; it was not a time in Soviet history conducive to interest in...the Romanovs.<<

That is pretty clear to me that they did not tell any local administrators.

And, it's very clear that bones were removed and all [or some??] were returned.

AGRBear

[J Kendrick]

They must also now demonstrate publicly that both sets of DNA that they now claim to have found in the 2007 discovery were *both* found in bone... and not just in teeth...

...because if either one of those two new DNA profiles was only found in the teeth.. then they are *still* missing a set of bones...

... which is the only possible explanation for the fact that they are now known to be continuing their search for a third possible burial pit nearby the second... what Nikolai Nevolin has described to the media only just three months ago as "another small burial site, a hole with the same amount of bones".

JK

[Russophile]

Amen to that Bear! They need to DO THEIR JOB and if there is a mistake, then they need to 'fess up to it, if there are things they cannot explain or have no answers to, ditto. We are a very forgiving audience as long as we are told the truth. All this innuendo dictates otherwise and that gets my hackles up!

[Michael HR]

All they have to do is to show the right number of DNA markers -v- the family and that is the end of it. Not difficult I would have thought?

The world awaits

[Anna was Franziska]

Amen Michael! They need to just spell the whole thing out and explain it all, maybe even have a press conference and answer questions. I was hoping this would be the big final announcement we've all been waiting for, but it wasn't much. Maybe the problem is that the info leaked out little at a time- but when it did, people denied it and said, this doesn't count, let's wait for the real one- so if this is the 'real' one it needs to make very clear that EVERYONE IS DEAD and they have no doubts about what they've found. No matter what AA is still not AN because her DNA didn't match (and other reasons) but we really do need to put an end to this case once and for all.

[ferrymansdaughter]

Well Bear, I have to say that I have always found the whole thing fishy. I remember when the grave was first found, I was dumbfounded because the whole of that area was supposed to have been searched countless times. I think it is far more likely that the authorities knew for years where the burial site was but for political reasons kept it secret and then fed Avdonin and Ryabov the information about its location.

The problem is that nothing in Russia is straightforward.

[Anna was Franziska]

In this story, it explains that Nicholas's DNA matched the Alexei fragments, and Nicholas's cousin (Andre according to an earlier story) and father (they dug up Alexander III? That's news to me)

US lab says remains of Russia's last tsar authentic - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

DNA from the tsar's remains was compared with that of his son, father and cousin, said Michael Coble of the US armed forces DNA identification laboratory. He said the results showed the remains unquestionably belonged to Nicholas II.

This story says:

DNA tests confirm Urals remains belong to Russia's last Tsar .:. NewKerala - India 's Top Online Newspaper

One of the aims of the analysis was to prove the authenticity of bone fragments discovered near Yekaterinburg last year and identified as the remains of Nicholas II's son and heir, Alexis, and daughter Maria.

Earlier tests, conducted by a dozen institutions in Russia and abroad, proved the remains found in 1991 and 2007 belonged to members of the same Tsar's family.

So apparently, their belief and rationale is that if the Nicholas body is proven authentic, that would automatically make the children authentic too, since they (2007 remains) have been proven by nuclear DNA to be the biological offspring of Nicholas.(1991 remains)

But Father Vsevold Chaplin, deputy head of the Moscow Patriarchy's foreign relations department, said ''I believe the results of those tests should be presented for discussion by a broad group of scientists, and explained to the public and Church leaders,''

This seems to be what most people here want. While those involved in the testing may not consider it necessary, why not just do it and put all doubts to rest, or continue to hear about it for years to come?

[BorisRom]

Expert confirms remains found near Yekaterinburg belong to Romanovs


Interfax-Religion
Yekaterinburg, December 8, Interfax - The remains found outside Yekaterinburg are those of members of the Romanov imperial family, Nikolay Nevolin, chief non-staff forensic expert of the Sverdlovsk Region Health Ministry, told a news conference in Yekaterinburg.
"The outcome of today's conference is historic. The matter has been brought to a close. It has been proved using advanced research methods that the remains belong to the Romanov family," he said.
"There is no point in continuing any examinations because the available results are sufficient for 100% identification," Nevolin said.
The case of the remains of Emperor Nicholas II of Russia will tentatively be closed on January 15, 2009 after it is summarized, said Vladimir Solovyov, a senior investigator for high-profile cases at the Russian Investigative Committee.
"The case is expected to be closed because the people who committed the crime are dead. The investigation is absolutely certain that the experts are right," he said.

[Michael HR]

As far as I can remember it was his Brother who was used for the DNA. GD George as I remember?

[Anna was Franziska]

The story posted by Boris doesn't specify if the remains they are speaking of are 1991, 2007 or both. Those in charge seem very confident they have all they need, but their reports are not detailed enough to explain to the rest of the world why they feel it has been brought to a close. I have been waiting years for this announcement, but I fear it's not going to be enough to satisfy those who read questions between the lines (which can easily be done since the information provided is so vague and brief) I do hope they will offer a longer and more complete report before it's all over. Most of all, I want a statement declaring in so many words ALL MEMBERS OF THE IF DIED THAT NIGHT AND ARE NOW ACCOUNTED FOR AND WE HAVE PROOF. Why can't they do that?

Michael- I heard it was George they used, too, years ago. If they have dug up Alexander III as this new story says, it must have been done secretly. I also was never aware of Cousin Andre being exhumed until these recent reports. A lot seems to have gone on behind the scenes that was never reported before. Again, we need the whole story to put it all properly to rest.

[J Kendrick]

No matter what has been reported from Russia about the Romanov investigation during the past week, none of this yet resolves any of our still unanswered questions.

... and *none* of this yet explains why the Russian investigators now have found reason to suspect... and are now still searching for... a *third* possible burial pit nearby the second.

JK

[J Kendrick]

>The case of the remains of Emperor Nicholas II of Russia
> will tentatively be closed on January 15, 2009 after it is
> summarized, said Vladimir Solovyov...

"Tentatively"?.... Why just "tentatively"?
A very curious choice of words from Prosecutor Solovyov, indeed... which now clearly indicates that it is *still not* going to end with a summary on January 15th...

From the Oxford Dictionary: Tentative: • adjective - 1 done without confidence; hesitant; not definitive. - 2 not certain or fixed; provisional. • noun - 3 an experimental proposal or theory. — DERIVATIVES adverb - tentatively, noun - tentativeness. — ORIGIN Latin tentativus, from temptare ‘handle, try’.

[Anna was Franziska]

I think I have the real deal breaker for all claimants here. Somebody emailed me this last night. It's dated in July, I don't know how we've missed it for that long. This article looks like it answers all the questions.

DefenseLink News Article: DoD Lab Helps to Resolve Century-Old Russian Mystery

Questions answered by this article:

1. Is there a definitive declaration that everyone died?

Answer: YES

Quote from article:
“There’s no doubt that nobody escaped,” said Dr. Michael Coble, the research section chief for the lab. “We can conclude here that based on this evidence, we have [recovered] the two missing children.”

2. What bones were used for testing? (it's been suggested maybe it was only a tooth, or perhaps something from the other grave)

Answer: Leg bones of the male and female. Not a tooth for Alexei, and since no leg bones are missing from the first three girls, this one is definitely the fourth and missing girl.

Quote from article:
Two main fragments, though, were about a half inch thick and a couple of inches in diameter. They were thigh bones, hollow in the middle, one from a male and one from a female. Leg bone samples are best for DNA testing, Coble said, because they are thick and dense.

3. Were separate profiles made for each girl?

Answer: Looks like one was made for each member of the family. They already had profiles for the two 2007 bodies, and then made profiles of the parents and other three girls.

Quote from article:
Then, to prove that the remains were the missing siblings of the Russian royal family, the lab went back to samples from the larger gravesite and developed DNA profiles of the other siblings and parents.

4. Does this mean we can tell which girl was missing and which was in the grave, Anastasia or Maria?

Answer: No, because there is no nuclear DNA sample preserved from either of those girls when they were alive to compare to the nuclear DNA found in the bones. However, there were different profiles for all the children and all four girls were proven to have died that night.

5. What are the odds there was some mistake, and these are only random people murdered and dumped in same area the with similar DNA?

Quotes from article:

So the lab then looked at the nuclear DNA of the samples. Everyone gets half of their nuclear DNA from each parent. This data showed that the samples were from a male and female who shared some DNA.

In fact, the data showed that it was more than 5 million times more likely they were related to each other than not, Coble said. Scientists are typically convinced of relationship with a likelihood ratio greater than 500, he said.

The chances of the two bodies in the burn pit NOT being siblings is 5 million to one. That is far more than the 500 to one that qualifies as convincing to scientists.

6.What are the odds these are just two siblings who happened to be dumped there and are not related to the royal family?Quote from the article:

When the samples were matched, the data showed that the likelihood they were members of the royal family was more than 4 trillion times the likelihood they were not. A typically strong likelihood ratio would be more than 1,000, Coble said.

The odds they were not related to the family in the mass grave are FOUR TRILLION TO ONE- and it only takes 1000 to 1 to convince scientists. So as you can see the odds are astronomically in favor of these being our Romanovs, and all the scientists are completely convinced they have found all the children.

7. What type of DNA testing was done?

Answer: (from info in the article) ALL 3 types- mtDNA and nuclear on the male and the female, and Y chromosome for the male. You will see the details spelled out in the article. All forms of testing gave the same conclusions, very strong evidence that the bones were from the 2 missing Romanov children.

8. What are the names of the labs involved?

According to the article:

US Department of Defense DNA Lab
Institute for Forensic Medicine in Innsbruck, Austria,
a Russian scientist doing collaborative work at a lab at the University of Massachusetts.

9. How do we know this isn't just more of the Russian putting a spin on things?

Answer: This information in this article came from an American scientist who works for the Dept of Defense lab, and his work has matched the ones done in Austria and by the Russian working in Mass. So there's no way to blame the Russian officials for anything here. Yes, perhaps the Russian officials were not as thorough as they should have been in their latest announcements, maybe they felt they didn't need to be. But getting the real deal straight from the horse's mouth of the guy who did the tests tells the story.

10. Does this mean an end to all claimant possibilities?

Answer: YES

These details explained in the article put the last nail in the coffin of hope for claimants. Now since all the bodies have been found and there's proof no one escaped, it doesn't even matter if AA's intestines were switched or not!

So as you can see there is no doubt about the authenticity of the bones and fragments tested. They are the Romanovs, all 7 of them.

No matter what outcome we had hoped for, now we can all put this issue behind us and move on and accept these test results and the answers they provide. Instead of trying to find reasons not to believe them, we should honor and respect the scientists and labs who worked so hard to get these results for us, and thank them for their historic conclusions.

[Elspeth]

Some of the results of earlier studies were published in Nature Genetics. Is there anything in the peer-reviewed literature about this finding yet?

[J Kendrick]

Originally Posted by Anna was Franziska

I think I have the real deal breaker for all claimants here. Somebody emailed me this last night. It's dated in July, I don't know how we've missed it for that long. This article looks like it answers all the questions.

DefenseLink News Article: DoD Lab Helps to Resolve Century-Old Russian Mystery

The American Forces Press Service article that has been quoted above is tainted with reporting inaccuracies. The most obvious of these inaccuracies can be found in the fourth paragraph.

Quote:
"More than a decade ago, the Russian government asked the Armed Forces DNA Identification Lab in Rockville, Md., to use its cutting-edge technology in DNA testing to help confirm the identify the royal family’s remains after a mass grave was discovered. The lab positively identified the remains of the czar, his wife and three daughters, and later disproved Anderson’s claims of royal heritage."

The US AFIP lab in Rockville, Md was *not* the lab that had identified the remains of Nicholas, Alexandra and the three daughters -- as the article you now quote has inaccurately reported -- and it was *not* the lab that had discounted the claims of Anna Anderson. Both of those same DNA tests were done by Dr. Peter Gill's Forensic Science Service lab of the British Home Office in the UK.

The US AFIP lab's initial involvement did not, in fact, come until many months later when they had first matched the evidence of a C/T heteroplasmy in mtDNA samples taken from the remains of the Grand Duke George with evidence of the same C/T heteroplasmy that had been found earlier in the mtDNA identification of Nicholas done by Peter Gill.

JK

[Warren]

That may be true, but then you have to assert that the statements of Dr Michael Coble are either misquoted, incorrect or lies if your intention is to undermine the argument that all members of the Imperial Family have been accounted for.

Picking up a minor error by a reporter in an opening statement does not in itself nullify the accuracy of, or cast doubt on, what Dr Coble has to say.

Dr. Michael Coble, the research section chief for the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory, talks about the DNA testing of bone samples from the missing two children of the last czar of Russia.

“We have very strong evidence on all three marker systems that what have here are the [remains of the] missing children,” Coble said.

“There’s no doubt that nobody escaped,” said Dr. Michael Coble, the research section chief for the lab. “We can conclude here that based on this evidence, we have [recovered] the two missing children.”

[Michael HR]

Thank God that's now over and done with. I have argued for months that we needed the markers to account for all and that is now done. This should now be the end to the matter once and for all.

[Russophile]

ARe the markers published? Inquiring minds wanna know!

[Anna was Franziska]

I have no idea if they were or not, but it's not likely any of us would know what we were looking at anyway. Coble was one of the scientists featured on the National Geographic special, and he showed his work on paper there. Maybe now that the announcement is final and the conference is over in Ekaterinburg, all of this will be published in magazines or more articles.

more on Coble, partial transcript of the Nat'l Geographic special "Finding Anastasia.'

Solving One of The Great Mysteries Of The 20th Century: National Geographic Channel's... | Reuters
One thing is for sure: The entire Romanov family is accounted for. And despite
the persistent claims, Anastasia, the youngest Romanov daughter, did not
escape.

[Anna was Franziska]

Originally Posted by J Kendrick

The US AFIP lab in Rockville, Md was *not* the lab that had discounted the claims of Anna Anderson. Both of those same DNA tests were done by Dr. Peter Gill's Forensic Science Service lab of the British Home Office in the UK.



JK

The lab did indeed work on the Anna Anderson case, coming to the same exact conclusions as Gill.

Establishing the identity of Anna Anderson Manahan - Nature Genetics

Nature Genetics 9, 9 - 10 (1995)
doi:10.1038/ng0195-9 Establishing the identity of Anna Anderson Manahan

Mark Stoneking1, Terry Melton1, Julian Nott2, Suzanne Barritt3, Rhonda Roby3, Mitchell Holland3, Victor Weedn3, Peter Gill4, Colin Kimpton4, Rosemary Aliston-Greiner4 & Kevin Sullivan4 1Department of Anthropology, Pennsylvania State University, Pennsylvania 16802, USA
2Peninsula Films Ltd., 222 Kensal Rd., London W10 5BN, UK
3Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory, AFIP, Rockville, Maryland 20850, USA
4Service Development, The Forensic Science Service, Priory House, Gooch Street North, Birmingham B5 6QQ, UK
--------------------------------------

On another forum, Richard Schweitzer, husband of Gleb Botkin's daughter Marina, states that he himself instigated and paid for the testing at AFIP:


Reply #127
« on: October 12, 2007, 03:11:28 PM »
Richard_Schweitzer
Boyar

Re:AA'sIntestines,Questions

Now that I have had time to scan the entire thread, I will contribute the following:

As I have reported elsewhere on this site, I quietly, at Peter Gill's urging, arranged (with great bureacratic difficulty) and paid expenses for the testing done by AFIP. That ruled out any compromise of the FSS specimen.
I understand that the AFIP and FSS profiles were derived by differing techniques, but were totally congruent.

(the Schweitzers (like Gleb, AA supporters) had also instigated and paid for the Gill testing.)