Anna Anderson's claim to be Grand Duchess Anastasia

[ChatNoir]

I believe she's saying except the fact that the DNA is correct and AA is FS. DNA say it was 99.9% possible FS was AA. It does have something to do with excepting reality. Nobody is preaching. Were just here to explain why AA wasn't Anastasia. Chat, you are giving me speculations, and rumors. NOT, PROVEN FACTS! You still haven't prove to me Anastasia knew Russian or French. These are RUMORS. There's a difference between 'rumors' and facts.

And there is a difference between rumors and testimonies in the Hamburg court, as is the case with the nurses from Dalldorf. And remember, even Gilliard had to admit in the court that AA had indeed spoken Russian to Shura. Even Olga admitted that AA clearly understood Russian. And the Priest at Seeon stated that AA performed her orthodox rites in Russian. And after the Easter dinner, AA thanked the Duchess of Leuchtenberg in fluent Russian. And the writer Urvantsov confirmed in writing that AA had spoken to him "in the purest Russian." Do you need more?
And can you please explain to me how FS turned out to have the same ears? The same face, according to experts? The same bilateral congenital Hallux Valgus? The same handwriting, accorcing to experts? Spoke the same languages, according to witnesses? And how could she be unconditionally recognized by former friends and members of the IF? How could she tell things from the IF life that not even people like Volkov knew? How could she identify people from photos that nobody outside the court circle would know? How could she tell details from Tobolsk and Ekaterinburg when there were no books around to disclose the information? How could she be of the same height, have the same gait, the same laughter, the same eyecolor, the same scars as AN? Where did FS learn how to play the piano, embroider, play tennis, paint and draw? Where did she learn all about etiquette? As the Duke of Leuchtenberg said: She never broke one of the unwritten rules of our class.

 

[Anna was Franziska]

I believe she's saying except the fact that the DNA is correct and AA is FS. DNA say it was 99.9% possible FS was AA. It does have something to do with excepting reality. Nobody is preaching. Were just here to explain why AA wasn't Anastasia. Chat, you are giving me speculations, and rumors. NOT, PROVEN FACTS!

Right! It's just hearsay somebody wrote down and is now trying to pass as fact. A lot of people said a lot of things, they're not all 'facts.'

You still haven't prove to me Anastasia knew Russian or French. These are RUMORS. There's a difference between 'rumors' and facts. This wasn't actually confimed! Speculation doesn't help anything. Such as: nurses heard AA speaking French, and the doctor heard her speak Russian, and she didn't want to speak Russian because of a number of reasons....etc. Why didn't see go to Anastasia's family members and prove she knew Russian and French? It wasn't proven in court.

True, she never proved it in court, or even in public. Those who met her said she couldn't speak anything but German. The only accounts we have of AA speaking anything other than German comes from supporters. She never proved it by speaking or writing it publically, because she couldn't.

Thanks for trying to counteract his inaccuracies, AE.

 

[ChatNoir]

Right! It's just hearsay somebody wrote down and is now trying to pass as fact. A lot of people said a lot of things, they're not all 'facts.'

I think you have a problem with seeing the difference between "hearsay" and statements and legal testimony.

True, she never proved it in court, or even in public. Those who met her said she couldn't speak anything but German. The only accounts we have of AA speaking anything other than German comes from supporters. She never proved it by speaking or writing it publically, because she couldn't.

Thanks for trying to counteract his inaccuracies, AE.

I have just included statements from some of "those who met her" and given their names. Now you do the same, please. And why do you discredit everything her "supporters" say and believe everybody against her without backing up your explanations? And why are you calling my postings "inaccuracies"? Were you there at the time? If not, please explain.

 

[GlitteringTiaras]

Once again it seems to be getting a tad heated in this debate. Shimmer down, people, and pretend you are lawyers trying a case. In other words, please be civil to each other. If you are trying to sway a jury (hence the readers who have no opinion) your arguments would be stronger minus the snarky jabs. Present your evidence, argue, counterargue, and refrain from being disrespectful. It is that simple.

Thank you.

GT
Russian Mod ​

 

[Elspeth]

AA = FS not AN

There's no need to go importing smilies when we have our own perfectly serviceable ones, you know...

 

[Elspeth]

Oh, I understand that aspect, Anna. I agree, it isn't right to mislead people into believing AA is A, especially if he doesn't have proof. Not, too many people will believe BlackCat's anyway. Herefuses to except the DNA. That's one fact he can never prove wrong- DNA.

It could be proved wrong, if someone were to make a formal accusation of fraud against the scientists, and be able to prove from seeing their lab notebooks that they'd falsified, massaged, or overinterpreted their data. I'd certainly be ready to discount all or part of the DNA data the moment I read a retraction of that paper by the journal, even if the retraction didn't extend to admitting that the data had been falsified. However, in the absence of something like that, I don't think it's too much to ask that the scientists be given at least some benefit of the doubt.

 

[COUNTESS]

I, certainly, agree with Elspeth. The scientists have never been approached in an untoward manner. Look, there are many people who resemble other people and, yet, are not related. I have seen people whom I could swear were the "sister, brother" of someone they didn't even know. Yes, her foot anomalies could appear in someone else, too. Some say she was, others say she wasn't, many who say she was stood to gain, if she was. Others, not so. Books have been written, so those who wanted to sell the fact that she was made money on that fact. In the end, as Elspeth, most wisely pointed out, is that no one has come and proved anything against the "real" scientific evidence.

 

[ChatNoir]

I, certainly, agree with Elspeth. The scientists have never been approached in an untoward manner. Look, there are many people who resemble other people and, yet, are not related.

Yes, I am sure there are. I am myself the spitting image of Caesar Romero. (At least, that's what I have been told on several occasions.) But identical ears? Aren't ears like fingerprints, every one is different?

I have seen people whom I could swear were the "sister, brother" of someone they didn't even know.

And so have I. But how could the Botkins spend so much time with her and not be on to her if she was FS? And Xenia Leeds, wouldn't she know after 6 months that she was housing an impostor?

Yes, her foot anomalies could appear in someone else, too.

Yes, they definitely could, but bilateral congenital Hallux Valgus is very rare. And impostors don't get THAT lucky.

Some say she was, others say she wasn't, many who say she was stood to gain, if she was.

Name some names here, please.

Others, not so. Books have been written, so those who wanted to sell the fact that she was made money on that fact. In the end, as Elspeth, most wisely pointed out, is that no one has come and proved anything against the "real" scientific evidence.

And what good is "real" evidence if it cannot solve the problem?

 

[Elspeth]

It's good in that it provides part of the solution. If you have a case where two people look alike but their DNA is different, then they aren't the same person even if the DNA evidence doesn't explain why they look alike.

You've said a few times that experts have said the two of them had identical faces, yet Anna was Franziska has come up with the name of an expert who apparently said otherwise. Is the "identical ears" business going to be the same? Are there any specialists on ear shape who have said anything about whether Anna Anderson had identical ears to either Anastasia or Franziska?

 

[COUNTESS]

As they only had pitures of Anastasia's ears, who could make a real comparison. She was killed in 1918, when she was young and her "ears" had not matured and the pictures from 1918 are not exactly the quality we have today. Even then, you are comparing photos to real ears. Nonsense.

 

[ChatNoir]

It's good in that it provides part of the solution. If you have a case where two people look alike but their DNA is different, then they aren't the same person even if the DNA evidence doesn't explain why they look alike.

Yes, looking alike can easily be explained. But the same deformities, the same hair color, the same scars, the same gait, the same "squirrel-like" laughter, the heap of memories, the knowledge of the rooms in the palaces, the same ears, the recognition of faces from photos, the languages spoken......It's just too much.

You've said a few times that experts have said the two of them had identical faces, yet Anna was Franziska has come up with the name of an expert who apparently said otherwise. Is the "identical ears" business going to be the same? Are there any specialists on ear shape who have said anything about whether Anna Anderson had identical ears to either Anastasia or Franziska?

The expert who said otherwise, used 1 (unverified) photo of FS, and 1 photo of AA, the only one (according to Felix Schanzkowski) where AA shows a resemblance to FS. The photos are taken from slightly different angles, and the comparison is made on a computer where manipulation is quite easy. What is your opinion of a test like this?
AA's ears were found to be identical to AN's ears in 17 tissue formations and curvatures by Dr. Mauritz Furtmayr in 1977. 12 were necessesary for identification by German law. The experiment has since been repeated with more modern methods, and the results are the same. Franziska's ears cannot be seen in the published photo.

 

[ChatNoir]

As they only had pitures of Anastasia's ears, who could make a real comparison. She was killed in 1918, when she was young and her "ears" had not matured and the pictures from 1918 are not exactly the quality we have today. Even then, you are comparing photos to real ears. Nonsense.

Ears do not change. They may get a little "floppy" as the years go by, but the basic form does not change.

Here is an interesting web site:

College of Engineering : Signatures : Candid Cameras

If you have looked at the web site I just gave you, there is an interesting snippet about recognition of gait.
Grand Duke Alexander's grandson was once brought to AA's house in Unterlengenhart by, I think, Ian Lilburn. AA knew nothing about the visit, but when she saw the guest from afar, she ran into the house and shut the door. From there, she shouted: That can only be a descendant of Grand Duke Alexander, I recognize his "ocean-like" walk.
Interesting, ain't it!

 

[Anna was Franziska]

There's no need to go importing smilies when we have our own perfectly serviceable ones, you know...

Thank you, that's great, even better than mine! I hadn't seen him before!

 

[ChatNoir]

They shoot horses, don't they?

(sorry, it's getting late, and I just couldn't help myself.)

 

[Elspeth]

Yep, and then they beat them...

 

[ChatNoir]

Yep, and then they beat them...

Fiddlesticks. The horse is not dead, it's just hiding from you all!

A tidbit from Harriet Rathlef Keilmann's book:

During the conversation, Baron Osten-Sacken asked permission to smoke, drew a cigarette-holder out, and lit a cigarette. I was standing at the patient's bedside, and noticed that she suddenly became much agitated. I could not understand the reason for this, and, as she apparently recovered her composure, I attached no importance to the indicent. Shortly after, Baron Osten-Sacken took his leave, and I prepared the patient for sleep. When it had grown dark in the room, she called me up to her bedside, and, in extreme agitation, asked: "For God's sake, tell me where the Baron got his pipe from?"

(As it turned out, the cigarette-holder was a present to him from a friend who had purchased it at Alexander's in St. Petersburg. It was the original from which Alexander had manufactured a similar one for the Tsar.)

On hearing it she said: "Thank God; I was so upset that I could not sleep a wink because I thought it was Papa's pipe....If you only knew what a shock it gave me to see that pipe...

She was really something, that Franziska.....

 

[ferrymansdaughter]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Anna was Franziska

Thanks to those who appreciated the DNA posts, I tried.

Once again - who is the DNA expert that you quoted?

I hate to sound like a cracked record but would you please let us know who was the DNA expert you quoted? (Since you are so reliant on the DNA argument.)

Thank you.

 

[AnastasiaEvidence]

Thank you, that's great, even better than mine!

I hadn't seen him before! hahaha I like this one! The horse looks like it's dying to me! They are so mean!

 

[Anna was Franziska]

I hadn't seen him before! hahaha I like this one! The horse looks like it's dying to me! They are so mean!

<Removed an uncalled remark towards a fellow TRF member ~GT>

Ferrymans, Davek was a poster on AP who had knowledge in the field of DNA and tried his best to explain it in terms we could all understand. If you have no scientific proof to refute his findings, it isn't right to question or devalue his results (but then again, he'd be in good company with Gill, Melton, the Queen, etc.)

 

[Jo of Palatine]

Another slant on the DNA-analysis:

the scientists in their paper published that the MtDNA they got from the samples provided as samples from Anna Anderson was in 5 out of 6 points different from the DNA of prince Philip (information provided by the Russian Mods int he thread about the Gill-paper).

In the same thread a link is provided: NOVA Online | Neanderthals on Trial | Tracing Ancestry with MtDNA

From that source:

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, Geneva, Sans-Serif]"There are many variables that can affect the mutation rate of mtDNA, including even the possibility that mtDNA is not always inherited strictly through maternal lines. In fact, recent studies show that paternal mtDNA can on rare occasions enter an egg during fertilization and alter the maternal mtDNA through recombination."

I agree that it says: on rare occasions. But as we don't have mtDNA of Grand Duchess Anastasia, the probability is not 0 that this happened and that Anastasia's mtDNA was not identical with that of her mother. So she could have had different mtDNA from her maternal relatives. Same for the DoE, though IIRC his DNA was cross-checked with that of a Hannoveran relative.

Of course the chance is probably not high and only a genetics specialist can say if the fact of the many intermarriages in a family could influence that chance and could lead to a greater or smaller probability of that happening.

But - a relative of mine has been sired without his parents having intercourse (both being Catholics and wanting to wait for their first time after the wedding...). When he was born, his mother's hymen had to be taken away first to allow the birth. Scientists say that such a "virgin's birth" happens in one of a million cases. Still: it happened. Following the reading and interpretation habits in this thread, I guess at least two members would tell me that of course he wasn't born or that he is not his father's son but the result of something else. He can't be, as there is a 99,9999 % chance that his mother never got pregnant at all. But he was sired and he is his father's son (proven through DNa-analysis because his father was as well one of the believers in the 100% rightfulness of a 99,9999 chance.) And no, he is not Jesus Christ reborn! At least not to my knowledge.

What I want to say with this example: even a 99,9999 probability is not 100%. So IMHO people should allow for the fact that stranger things have happened. Who for example would believe a story on the grounds of probability alone that there had been a lady in a very influencial position, whose gene have mutated by chance. This lady became the mother of a lot of children who carried genes that made their progeny ill. Seriously ill. And because the mother was so influential her and her children's progeny married other influential people so a whole class of influential people became carriers or sufferers of that disease. Sounds like a fantasy or pure fiction. But could it be the truth, even though it sounds unbelievable?

And before I get accused of not talking plaintext: Queen Victoria. Haemophilia. Where did it come from if not through genetic mutation?

Some questions I'm asking myself now: Could that mean that progeny of Victoria was prone to genetic mutations? Only a scientist can tell - or will be able to tell in the future. But from common sense I'd say there is a chance that it is inheritable. Maybe nature has its own concept of "saving" children's genes from parents who carry diseases by making spontanous mutations? I'm not into genetics at all, except from what I've read so far which isn't that much, but I've read quite some books about intermarriage in Royal families and the outcome of this. So IMHO there could be [/FONT][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, Geneva, Sans-Serif]a coincidence, especially considering the fact that though lots of Wittelsbachs or their children were mentally ill or at least depressed/melancholic according to their biographers, their offspring of today is not affected anymore. Eg. the offspring of Gisela of Austria, princess of Bavaria, daughter of Elisabeth of Wittelsbach and her cousin Franz Joseph I.. An Archduchess whose brother was depressed and who married back into the Wittelsbach-family. Her branch of the Wittelbach is perfectly sane today.

Plus the science of genetics is not yet at the end of all questions - some have not even been researched...

But you on the fences: form your own opinion or be just amused...


[/FONT]

 

[Anna was Franziska]

Another slant on the DNA-analysis:

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, Geneva, Sans-Serif]
I agree that it says: on rare occasions. But as we don't have mtDNA of Grand Duchess Anastasia, the probability is not 0 that this happened and that Anastasia's mtDNA was not identical with that of her mother. So she could have had different mtDNA from her maternal relatives. Same for the DoE, though IIRC his DNA was cross-checked with that of a Hannoveran relative.

[/FONT]

The bodies, including the and male and female remains from the 2007 grave, have been tested not only with the mtDNA of the Victorian line, but with the nuclear DNA of the parents, and they do match as being their biological children.

We won't know for sure until the final results are published by the scientists, but it is possible they DO now have the nuclear DNA of AN.

In addition to that, it's a little known fact that the DoE's was not the first of the Victorian line to be sequenced. From another board:

The first Victorian mtDNA to be sequenced was not the Duke of Edinburgh's, it was Princess Katherine of Yugoslavia's (Mrs. De Silva). The sample was taken in London and sent to Brown University where it was sequenced and compared to a purported offspring of Grand Duchess Tatiana Nicholievna. There was no match.

The DOE's mtDNA was sequenced ahead of AA's. Regardless, to no one's surprise, the DOE's mtDNA exactly matched that of Princess Katherine's and neither matched AA's.

I have direct knowledge of the allegations against Her Majesty and that they are false...A few years back, it was alleged by someone on this board that the British Royal Family fabricated the Victorian mtDNA sequence from the Duke of Edinburgh in order to falsely disprove Anna Anderson's identification as Anastasia. What neither the Royal Family nor the poster knew was that the Victorian mtDNA sequence was first extracted at Brown University in the US. The sample came from Princess Katherine of Yugoslavia, a maternal line descendant of QV, as is Philip. Their results, because the tests were done privately, were never published. However, Katherine's and Philip's mtDNA exactly matched, disproving that there was any fabrication by the RF or anyone else involved with the identification of the (original) Ekaterinburg remains.

 

[Jo of Palatine]

The bodies, including the and male and female remains from the 2007 grave, have been tested not only with the mtDNA of the Victorian line, but with the nuclear DNA of the parents, and they do match as being their biological children.

We won't know for sure until the final results are published by the scientists, but it is possible they DO now have the nuclear DNA of AN.

Of course it is possible. It is possible as well that they didn't find Ananstasia's body because it is buried somewhere else (she surely is dead by now whereever she lived and when she died).

So let's wait and see.

In addition to that, it's a little known fact that the DoE's was not the first of the Victorian line to be sequenced.

That was not my point. My point was that recent research, as claimed by a website PhD Elspeth found reliable enough to provide a link to, has shown that mtDNA is not always inherited over the maternal line. So if Anastasia by chance was one with an inheritance of a remix between paternal and maternal mtDNA, her mtDNA would not be the same as that of others of the Victorian line.

I agreed that it's said that it's a rare occurance. But it's not a Zero possibility. And I agree that the fact that other descendants of Victoria share the same mtDNA could be an argument against Victoria's line having a somewhat higher probability of gene mutations, even though Victoria herself had one. Though I think the database is much too small as mutations are rare events in any case so two tests with three DNA-samples don't help that much.

 

[Elspeth]

So, Jo, you're finding a few cases of millions-to-one chances of things. I think we're all agreed that 99.9999% isn't 100%; just about all good scientific results are presented with error limits to give some information about the precision and accuracy of the results. But this still strikes me as the same argument you were using the other day about scientific fraud -a rather unusual occurrence happens in some completely different context, and therefore we should be suspicious of these results over here. If this standard was applied across the sciences, nothing would ever get done. I mean, it's fairly clear from what you're saying that your position about the DNA data isn't provisional acceptance but provisional rejection; my personal feeling is that these results are better than that, given the people who were involved in producing them.

I don't know about Peter Gill's credentials, but it isn't an exaggeration to say that Mark Stoneking is a world leader in mtDNA research. I assume he's aware of some of these quirks of mtDNA mutation and inheritance. If new information had come in since 1994 which had invalidated his results, I very much doubt that other researchers (such as the Knight group at Stanford) would have been shy about mentioning it. As of this February when he responded to my e-mail, he was standing by his results, and I doubt that he's unaware of the developments in this area of research.

I believe that for the other paper they wrote (the one about the mass grave which they say contains the skeletons of the Tsar, the Tsarina, and three of their children, the mtDNA matches were exact (at the loci that were tested, at any rate). The actual wording from that paper is as follows:

"Both DNA strands of both hypervariable mtDNA regions were sequenced for all samples, with the exception of skeleton 9 (a probable servant)...No sequence differences were observed between duplicate samples from the same individual...The quality of the sequence was generally comparable to that produced from the fresh blood samples...Pairwise comparisons from the nine bone samples indicated that six different sequences were present in the group which varied on average by six nucleotides and identical sequences were generated from the putative Tasrina and three children...HRH Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, is a grand-nephew of unbroken maternal descent from Tsarina Alexandra. He prvided a sample of blood for comparison purposes which enabled us to confirm the sibling status of the children adnd the identification of the mother; all of the mtDNA sequences were the same."

From Table 2 of that paper, the mtDNA results look like this:

CTCCCCACCTTT ATTA*** (reference sequence)
TTCCCCACCTTC ATTG..C (female child 1)
TTCCCCACCTTC AT-G..C (female child 2)
TTCCCCACCTTC ATTG..C (female child 3)
TTCCCCACCTTC ATTG..C (adult female, putative Tsarina)
TTCCCCACCTTC ATTG..C (Prince Philip)

The dash for female child 2 indicates no nucleotide assignment; the stars show where nucleotides were used that weren't in the Anderson reference sequence (where "Anderson" has nothing to do with Anna Anderson but is a quite different Anderson); the red letters show where the listed sequences differ from the reference sequence, and in each case these differences are the same across all samples.

In this analysis, the result for the skeleton identified as being the Tsar was as follows, along with sequences for a couple of female-line relations of the Tsar:

CCYCCCATTTTC GTTG..C (adult male, putative Tsar)
CCTCCCATTTTC GTTG..C (Gt Gt grandson of Louise of Hesse-Cassel)
CCTCCCATTTTC GTTG..C (Gt Gt Gt granddaughter of Louise)

Again in each case they match, except for the Y in the Tsar's sequence, which is a C/T heteroplasmy - even so, the T is the same nucleotide as in the other two sequences.

From comparing the two papers, I'm seeing the following:

At position 16111 the nucleotides are as follows:

Putative Tsar - C
Putative Tsarina - T
Prince Philip - T
Anna Anderson intestine - T
Anna Anderson hair - T

At position 16126:

Putative Tsar - T
Putative Tsarina - T
Prince Philip - T
Anna Anderson intestine - C
Anna Anderson hair - C

At position 16266:

Putative Tsar - no data
Putative Tsarina - no data
Prince Philip - C
Anna Anderson intestine - T
Anna Anderson hair - T

At position 16294:

Putative Tsar - T
Putative Tsarina - C
Prince Philip - C
Anna Anderson intestine - T
Anna Anderson hair - T

At position 16304:

Putative Tsar - T
Putative Tsarina - T
Prince Philip - T
Anna Anderson intestine - C
Anna Anderson hair - C

At position 16357:

Putative Tsar - T
Putative Tsarina - C
Prince Philip - C
Anna Anderson intestine - T
Anna Anderson hair - T

So the Anna Anderson samples match the Prince Philip sample in one position out of six, the putative Tsarina sample in one position out of five, the putative Tsar sample in two positions out of five, and neither the Tsar nor the Tsarina in two positions out of five. I don't know what sort of result you were expecting if Anna Anderson was Anastasia and if Anastasia had inherited mtDNA from both parents. Do you think the above data show the sort of pattern that would lead to this conclusion?

 

[Anna was Franziska]

One more question for Jo- on the 'other side', why do you think that the AA intestine and AA hair match each other perfectly, and that they both matched Carl Maucher? Could it be that the intestines really were hers, the hair really was hers, and that Maucher really was her relative? What are the odds that is not the case?

Also, what do you think would have happend if any one of those three had been 'botched' in the lab? As Dr, Melton told me:

Multiple labs got the same results on different tissues (hair/intestinal tissues) at different times. Independent testing such as this is best practice in forensic testing, especially when the results are going to be scrutinized at the level of this case. It is highly unlikely that the same results would be obtained in different labs if the work was shoddy. More likely, the labs would have gotten different results that made no sense compared to each other.

 

[Russophile]

Being devil's advocate here, which multiple labs?

 

[Elspeth]

According to the paper in Nature Genetics, The Forensic Science Service in England (Peter Gill's lab) and the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in Rockville, MD, tested different samples taken from the small bowel specimen from the Martha Jefferson Hospital. The hair samples were tested at Pennsylvania State University (Mark Stoneking and Terry Melton's place of work at the time).

 

[Menarue]

According to the paper in Nature Genetics, The Forensic Science Service in England (Peter Gill's lab) and the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in Rockville, MD, tested different samples taken from the small bowel specimen from the Martha Jefferson Hospital. The hair samples were tested at Pennsylvania State University (Mark Stoneking and Terry Melton's place of work at the time).

Elspeth I wonder if anyone will try and argue with that!

 

[Jo of Palatine]

Do you think the above data show the sort of pattern that would lead to this conclusion?

In the meantime I have spoken to a genetics expert here in Germany (at least he claims he is one and was offered to me as a contact by people I believe know where to refer me to) and he said that while he did not want to go into too much details and while he of course supports his collegues' findings when they published a paper he had to say that genetics when you put it fdown on individual DNA never ceases to amaze him for the tricks nature is able to play on "rules". So his advice in the Anna Anderson-case (and he laughed out laud when I said about which case I wanted to talk!) was to either "believe" in science absolutely (and he meant that as to take scientific results without a grain of salt) or to evaluate the other circumstances of the case as much as the DNA-results, especially if these results are stand-alone results.

And that was all I ever tried: I never tried to prove that AA was Anastasia Romanov. I only believe that in case so complicated, with so many contradictory "facts" one should stay open to both sides. There is IMHO no final proof for that question.

And all I want is that people discussing that case accept that there is at least a small, small shadow of a doubt. I think the way a lot of people make a belief out of fighting for their position is wrong, intolerant and hurtful to others who had first-hand experience with Ms. Anderson. (I don't see how the other party, the supporters, are hurting anyone as it was an active decision to declare AA an imposter. So they surely are able to live with that decision). And for what gain does this happen today? There is no gain in this mystery. That's the real stupid aspect. It doesn't touch anybody's life anymore, Anna Anderson, Franziska Schanzkowski and Anastasia Romanov are most probably dead and nothing is known about any offspring. Still it's as missionary as a religion. That's crazy. Stupid. Negative.

Elspeth wishes for a more positive way to look at scientific results. That's not how I'm thinking I'm afraid. Maybe it's because I'm a German. We had to learn how helpful "science" and "genetics" were for the Nazis to achieve their inhuman goals, how "scientifically" founded their findings about the Jewish and other "underling" were at a first glance. How science was used to achive goals that were based in completely other motives. In 2001 a book was published at a very reknown German publishing house which got favorite reviews all around: "Deutsche Medizin im 3. Reich - German medicine science in the third Reich" by Ernst Klee, S. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt. In it the author portrays scientists who actively helped and even encouraged the Nazis in their politics because they were thus given the chance to experiment with real people. A book to give you sleepless nights. Especially as nothing happened to most of these scientists after the war. For anyone who likes to read more: Research | Library | Bibliography
No a nice read, though.

Finding out so much and on learning that leading German scientists who worked in war technology research like Wernher von Braun were immediately after the capitulation of Nazi-Germany brought to the US and given good positions even though they had actively employed their own concentration camp with enslaved people to build their prototypes in the wartime in Peenemuende and later in Dora, I have to agree that I probably have a somewhat cynical view at science, scientists and the people employing them even though I'm married myself to one and we have lots of friends in the research profession.

Further reading: Operation Paperclip - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Wernher von Braun - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Hubertus Strughold - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Kurt Blome - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ; Walter Schreiber - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

So yes, I simply don't believe in science blindly and try to think for myself about potential motives first before accepting even scientifical verdicts.

 

[Jo of Palatine]

One more question for Jo- on the 'other side', why do you think that the AA intestine and AA hair match each other perfectly, and that they both matched Carl Maucher? Could it be that the intestines really were hers, the hair really was hers, and that Maucher really was her relative? What are the odds that is not the case?

Also, what do you think would have happend if any one of those three had been 'botched' in the lab?

If you read what you and I wrote before you'll find the answers to all that.

 

[ferrymansdaughter]

<Removed an uncalled remark towards a fellow TRF member ~GT>

Ferrymans, Davek was a poster on AP who had knowledge in the field of DNA and tried his best to explain it in terms we could all understand. If you have no scientific proof to refute his findings, it isn't right to question or devalue his results (but then again, he'd be in good company with Gill, Melton, the Queen, etc.)

Who said I am "devalueing" his results? I am asking who he was. Please don't tell me that it isn't right to question his results when he is anonymous. For all I know "DaveK" could be anyone. If you wish to quote someone as an authority on any subject, then you should tell us who they are . If you don't know his real name, then say so.