Mystery Of Murdered Russian Tsar's Missing Children Solved By DNA Study

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Russia's last tsar Nicholas II (L) and his wife Tsarina Alexander Fyodorovna (2ndR) and children Prince Alexei and Princesses Olga, Tatyana, Maria and Anastasia

Photo:
EPA








                            Mystery of murdered Russian Tsar's missing children solved by DNA study



              All five children of Russia's last Tsar were murdered by the Bolsheviks, according to a new DNA


            analysis that ends decades of conspiracy theories about family members who had escaped abroad.
 





By Alastair Jamieson
11 Mar 2009
Telegraph.co.uk

A study based on detailed evidence from the exhumed remains of the Romanovs concludes the whole family was slaughtered in 1918 in the wake of the Russian revolution.

The results show none of the children of Tsar Nicholas II or his wife Tsarina Alexandra survived the execution, ending speculation that surviving members of the dynasty had fled the country to start a new life elsewhere.

The gunshot-and-bayonet murders took place in July 1918 in a cellar in the city of Ekaterinburg, central Russia.

Since then, about 200 people have claimed to descend from one or other of the Romanovs who had somehow survived the slaughter in the basement of Ipatiev House.

The claims were bolstered by the fact that the grave in which the Romanovs were buried was found to contain the bodies of only three of the children when it was finally examined following the collapse of Soviet Union in 1991.

A second grave was found by an amateur archaeologist in 2007, containing human bone fragments left over from an attempted cremation.

The DNA study, printed in the Public Library of Science and reported in The Independent, concludes these bone fragments were the remains of a girl and a boy, believed to be the crown prince Alexei and one of his four sisters.

The study said the only remaining mystery is whether the fourth sister buried with Alexei was Maria or Anastasia.

Earlier studies of DNA from the nine skeletons first grave were carried out by scientists including Peter Gill from Britain's Forensic Science Service.

A comparison with the DNA of living Romanov relatives, including Prince Philip, proved that the family was that of the last Tsar and Tsarina and three daughters with the four remaining skeletons belonging to the family doctor and three servants.

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                           DNA testing ends mystery surrounding Czar Nicholas II children


                            With bone fragment analysis, scientists put to rest the rumors


        that two children might have escaped the royal family's slaying during the Russian Revolution.






By Thomas H. Maugh II
March 11, 2009
The Los Angeles Times

The most enduring and romantic legend of the Russian Revolution -- that two children of Czar Nicholas II and his wife, Alexandra, survived the slaughter that killed the rest of their family -- may finally be put to rest with the positive identification of bone fragments from a lonely Russian grave.

Czar Nicholas II and familyThe czar and his family were gunned down and stabbed by members of the Red Guard early on the morning of July 17, 1918, but rumors have persisted that two of the children, the Grand Duchess Anastasia and her brother Alexei, survived, perhaps because the diamonds sewn
into their clothes blocked attempts to kill them.

Those hopes were bolstered with the 1991 revelation that nine bodies of Romanov family members and servants had been found in a Yekaterinberg grave, but that a son and daughter were still missing.

Now, newly analyzed DNA evidence from a second, nearby grave discovered in 2007 proves that the bones are those of two Romanov children, ending the mystery once and for all. A report on the analysis was published online Tuesday in the journal PloS One.


"I think it is very compelling evidence that this family has been reunited finally," said geneticist Terry Melton of Mitotyping Technologies in State College, Pa., an expert in forensic DNA. Melton, who was
not involved in the new research, played a major role in disproving the famous claim of the late Anna Anderson that she was Anastasia.

Melton says she still receives several calls each year from people claiming to be direct descendants of the Romanovs.

"There is absolutely no doubt that these are the remains of the Romanov family," said Peter Sarandinaki, founder of the Scientific Expedition to Account for the Romanov Children, which has been seeking the remains of the family.

"The scientific results are, without a doubt, conclusive," said Sarandinaki, the great-grandson of the White Army general who attempted to rescue the Romanovs before their deaths.

Nicholas II abdicated the throne in March 1917, ending the 304-year Romanov rule, and the family was banished to Siberia.

The following year, the family, their doctor and three servants were executed by the Red Guard on the orders of Vladimir Lenin and their bodies disposed of.

Russian film director Gely Ryabov, an amateur archaeologist, found the remains of nine bodies in an unmarked grave near Yekaterinberg in the early 1970s, but kept the discovery secret until 1991, after the fall of the Soviet Union.

DNA testing in the 1990s by geneticist Peter Gill of the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland, indicated that the remains were those of the czar and czarina and three of their daughters. For comparison samples, researchers used DNA from Britain's Prince Philip, whose grandmother and the czarina's grandmother were sisters, and from indirect descendants of the royal family.

Two years ago, archaeologists found a second grave about 70 yards from the first. It contained 44 broken and burned bone fragments, consistent with reports that the Red Guard unsuccessfully tried to burn the remains of two of the dead children before burying them.

Russian authorities enlisted the help of geneticist Michael Coble of the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory in Rockville, Md., the world's largest mitochondrial DNA testing facility, specializing in identifying the remains of U.S. soldiers.