DNA Test Confirms Remains of the Last of the Russian Tsar’s Family
Russian authorities confirmed yesterday that the bone fragments found last year belonged to Alexei and Maria, the last two members of the Romanov family whose fates remained in question.
The rest of the royal family’s remains were found in 1991 at a burial site in Yekaterinburg, Siberia.
Historical accounts say that on July 17, 1918, Communist guards lined up and shot Nicholas, his wife, Alexandra, their five children and four attendants in a small basement room in a nobleman’s house in Yekaterinburg. The bodies were loaded in a truck and disposed of first in a mine shaft, according to most accounts. Other reports indicated that the bodies of nine victims (the family, a doctor, and a nurse) were doused with sulfuric acid and buried along a road, while those of Alexei and a sister were burned and left in a pit nearby.
In August of last year, possible remains for Alexei and his sister were found in a burned area in the ground near Yekaterinburg.
The identity of the remains, in both cases, were confirmed using mtDNA comparison testing.
The Tsar’s remains were identified by comparing the mtDNA extracted from the skeletal remains with that of James, Duke of Fife, who was maternally related to the Tsar. Samples donated by Prince Philip of England helped identify the remains of the Tsarina and three of her daughters, who were of the same maternal line. No skeletal remains were found for the 2 youngest Romanov children at the time.
When the second set of remains were found, mtDNA was then extracted and compared with the genetic material of the czarist family from the remains found in 1991.
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on Thursday, July 17th, 2008 at 4:07 pm and is filed under DNA Paternity Testing.
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