Talk:Anna Anderson/Archive 1

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Part One

Ok, I admit it, this was very detailed! Arno 08:01 2 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Thanks. Better to have the details, that way there's less to argue about in case any Andersonians come along. Plus, this way it gets all the Anna Anderson stuff off the Anastasia page, leaving the Anastasia page actually about, you know, Anastasia. john 08:19 2 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Okay, how do we know Anna Anderson was 72 when she married Mr. Manahan? Is this the age that Ms. Schanzkowska would have been? Because we can't be absolutely certain that she was Schanzkowska. The DNA test merely indicated that she was probably Schanzkowska. john 06:20 5 Jul 2003 (UTC)

True, mtDNA can't be used for identification, but since the null hypothesis being tested is that her mtDNA should specifically match the Schanzkowska mtDNA it increases the odds that she WAS Schanzkowska dramatically. This is an instance there the scientific result was predicted before the test occurred, rather than a DNA result obtained first and then cross-indexed against random archived sequences. It's a much stronger result than most people realize. -- Someone else 06:32 5 Jul 2003 (UTC)~

Yes, I agree with you that she was probably Schanzkowska, but I don't think that the identification is certain enough that we can identify Schanzkowska's age with Anna Anderson's as a matter of fact. john 06:42 5 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Her own family identified Schanzkowska! Their claims were supported by the DNA tests. This sounds like reasonable proof to me. Arno 07:16, 17 Mar 2004 (UTC)

My understanding is that some members of the family identified her, while others did not, or were uncertain. At any rate, that part of it was inconclusive. The DNA test said that there was a very high chance she was a mitochondrial relation of Schanzkowska (and thus, presumably, Schanzkowska), but doesn't prove it. At any rate, I've encountered enough Anna Anderson supporters to want to be careful. I think the article as written would lead any reasonable person to believe that Schanzkowska and Anderson were one and the same, because that's what the facts as we know them indicate. There's no need to prejudice it with POV statements, because it's obvious to anyone whose mind isn't already made up. john 08:58, 17 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I missed your reply completely until now.

Do these supporters still believe that their Anna is Anastasia?? How do they account for the DNA tests?? Also, you say that the tests don't prove that Anna was Ms Schanzkowska. Well, no, but they certainly disprove that she was Anastasia. The tests, and the identifications, certainly seem to prove beyond reasonable doubt that she was Ms Schanzkowska. By casting too much doubt over this, you are succumbing to the supporters' POV, which is certainly prejudiced. Arno 07:40, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Actually, Franziska's own family did not recognize Anna Anderson as their sister. DNA tests done on remains that cannot be proven to be 100% from Anna Anderson cannot be considered the conclusive evidence.

Material moved out of article

This is of interest, but belongs in a different article, to which this one and Anastasia could link to:

The Great Romanov Deception - Gives an account of Alexis and Anastasia Romanov escaping to the United States and living as Joseph and Magdalene Veres. Includes various photographs.

I think we can't say that Anna ANderson was not Anastasia. I'm doing a persusive projct on this.

I have to agree with you. Anna Anderson was not Anastasia, but I think it's also fair to say that Anna wasn't sure of it all herself. I don't think she was Anastasia though, despite everything. The DNA test was enough for me, but also I feel she didn't look like Anastasia. There are features on her face that are vastly different from Anastasia. To be honest, they are entirely sure it *was* Anastasia's body that was missing. I've heard more people tend to believe now that it was in fact Maria.--80.193.19.191 16:07, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

In fact, we can say this. The DNA proved that she was not a mitochondrial descendant of Grand Duchess Alice of Hesse. If she had been, her mDNA would have matched that of the Duke of Edinburgh, Anastasia's maternal first cousin once removed. john k 15:20, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I don't believe AA was Anastasia. It's nice to believe that one of thre Tsar's daughters escaped death, but I think that they all died. Besides, it is widely thought now that the two bodies missing were Alexei and Maria, not Anastasia. Alexei and Maria's bodies were probably burnt, I'm not sure why but that's what I believe. There was a Russian woman living in South Africa called Alina who told her husband's family there that she was a Russia noble whose family were murdered at that she barely escaped with her life. She talked about events that happened to the Tsar's family long before they were revealed to the public. When word came out that one of the Tsar's family had escaped, she was always nervous when police came around, guard etc... Her family began to think she was Anastasia, though she never claimed to be one of their family. After her death, when the news came out about the missing bodies, that one of them was Alexei and the other was either Anastasia or Maria (Thought to be Maria now), her grandson started to believe that Alina was Maria. I took an interest into his story and though I still believe all the children died, I believe in Alina over AA anyday. --Camblunt100 11:21, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

-The only people who ever supported the theory that Marie's body was missing were Dr. Abramov and his team of Scientists. US and UK scientists always thought it was Anastasia. Also, if Anna Anderson was Franziska Schanzkowska, then why were her opponents constantly coming up with lies to support their theory? It dosen't make sense unless Anna Anderson was Anastasia and the royal families are still trying to cover it up.

POV dispute

There are so many inflammatory phrases inserted into this otherwise well-written article that I hardly know where to begin...it appears that the most recent editor has some sort of axe to grind on this subject, so should I put up the POV check or simply attempt to edit? A Runyon 19:03, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

The article seems to be fine now. I've removed the POV tag. If anyone disagrees, feel free to undo. Give a reason though. Ikh 10:58, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

I've replaced the NPOV tag. This article was clearly written by someone who firmly believes that Anna Anderson was Anastasia. This is particularly evident when the article discusses the evidence for and against her identification as Anastasia, but it runs throughout the entire article, with many pieces of positive evidence being cited multiple times throughout the article. - Kleio08 20:24, 31 August 2006

The article was originally written by me, who does not believe that. It has attracted a great deal of pro-Anderson cruft over the last three years. I'm not sure how to deal with it. I removed some particularly awful nonsense a few weeks ago, but it's bound to creep back. john k 02:28, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

conspicuously missing info: "Anderson"

If she was a "Miss Unknown" who claimed to be a Romanov who married a Tschaikovsky and then a Manahan, where does the name "Anderson" come from?

She started using it in the 20s, I think. john k 17:36, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Gleb and Tatiana Botkin

They were not 'close childhood friends' of the Imperial Family. Mstislava 15:27, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

-Yes, they were.

Meeting a few times over the years would not make them close. Mstislava 13:11, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

-Why don't you read 'The Real Romanovs' by Gleb Botkin and see they were playmates of the young children. They were closer to the children and the family than most of the other members of the Romanov family.

They were not playmates, occasional visitors yes, but not playmates. Gleb and Tatiana would not have been considered 'suitable'. You should know that Alexandra Fyodorovna actively discouraged her daughters and son to have friends. 15:09, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

-But Alexandra was very fond of Gleb Botkin.

She was also fond of Grigori Rasputin and look where that got her. Tatiana and Gleb did have contact with the Imperial Family, but not as much as Gleb makes out. Just because of who their father was does not mean they were at the Alexander Palace all the time. Mstislava 15:13, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Additions

There's been a lot of stuff added that supposedly contests the validity of the DNA test results. Most of it is a long block quote. I've never read anything from anyone who's not an Anna Anderson partisan (like Greg King, for instance), which has suggested that there is any doubt that Anna Anderson cannot have been the daughter of Nicholas and Alexandra. But yet, there we have a long, detailed, technical discussion of DNA testing that seems to say, in fact, that the DNA tests which were done were worthless. What is to be done about this stuff? Is there any kind of recent neutral discussion of the subject (i.e., one not by someone who was a personal friend of Mrs. Manahan?) john k 20:15, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

-Greg King is not an Anna Anderson supporter, and he never met Anna Anderson. The DNA tests have lost much of their validity over the past decade. It's a fact.

1) The nuclearDNA tests are no longer valid. 20-point STR testing is now done instead of 6-point STR testing. 6-point testing has shown to result in false positive and negative results.

2) mtDNA is no longer used in court cases. It can be contaminated by simply touching or breathing on a sample. One scientist estimated that 50% of samples which are not supposed to give results do.

3) mtDNA profiles are not the discriminating factor they once were. Recent studies have shown that 40 of a random 1,000 people share the same mtDNA profile.

Whether or not King knew her personally, he is most certainly a supporter of her claims (you can find plenty of evidence of this in the usenet archives, if you want to). As to whether it's a fact, can you provide a source that says this other than Greg King? Beyond this, my understanding was that while mtDNA can be contaminated, this is only likely to result in false positives, not false negatives. That is to say, we can't prove that Anna Anderson was Franciska Schanzkowska, but mtDNA can prove that she wasn't Anastasia. If 40 of a random 1,000 people share the same mtDNA profile, why didn't Anna Anderson share one with the Duke of Edinburgh or with the remains of the Imperial Family? At any rate, I want a source on this that is a DNA expert, not a biographer of the Romanovs. King is not qualified to discuss the DNA issue. john k 11:54, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

-King has stated he does not care either way if Anderson is or is not Anastasia. What he said is truth. It dosen't matter either way if he is a supporter, because you show this to any scientist and they'll approve its validity. If mtDNA is contaminated, it will not give the right results. King many not be a scientist, but he is a reliable source as he has studied the science. We cannot say that Anna was not Anastasia when you consider the doubts surrounding mtDNA. I think the nuclearDNA should be reexamined.

Wikipedia is not the place to test DNA, but to report results of DNA tests published elsewhere. Likewise, Wikipedia, strictly speaking, is not the place to publish (as first publisher) criticism against certain DNA test case, but to account for criticisms of that DNA testing case that are published earlier elsewhere. If we are strict, every criticism which is not based on a published source can be edited away from.
Of the specific question of mt, of course any mt is quite common (= shared with manypercent of human pop) - in the world, there are only a limited number of haplogroups, and variants tend to be quite close, as mutations do not make total overhauls. Please remember what mt actually is: it is almost like cloning, as paternal and maternal material do NOT mix in every generation, actually they never mix. However, that makes it yet clearer that false negatives are next to impossible to obtain by mt test - John is correct in stating that. As Anna Anderson's mt does not even distantly resemble her alleged mother Alexandra Fyodorovna's mt, Anna cannot be Anastasia. Were she to be a daughter of Alexandra, her mt needs to be at least close resemblance to Alexandra's: as I said, we cannot expect a total overhaul in one generation. Marrtel 23:34, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

As I said, mtDNA can easily be contaminated. There exists a great probablity that the mtDNA of the intestine was contaminated. Wikipedia should be a place for facts, not simply what old out-modeled DNA tests report.

It is also important to note that this is in the 'Supporters Cling to Hope' section, not in the 'DNA results' section.

A long quote from a Romanov biographer on the subject just isn't appropriate to this article. What we would need are 'geneticists who agree with King, and have commented on this specific case. At most, we should simply note that Anna Anderson supporters have disputed the DNA testing as unreliable or contaminated. john k 16:40, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

-There has not been a genticist who has refuted his quote either. So we really don't know. That's why it is said 'Historian Greg King claims there is doubt."

A serious paper from the 'Annals of Human...": [1]

Peter Kurth is definitely an Anna Anderson supporter. As to the rest of it, I'm fine with saying that scholars sympathetic to Anderson's claims (and I think this is a fair description of King - calling him a "supporter" might be too strong, but he is certainly sympathetic) still believe that there is doubt, and have called the validity of the DNA testing into question. But we should include the long quote. john k 15:28, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Peter Kurth did not write that. It may be on his site, but it was written by a scientist, Dr. Alec Knight. It is a direct challenge to the mtDNA sequence of Prince Philip derived by Dr. Peter Gill.

Sorry, didn't look at the page, just the url. I will say, though, that the article does not even mention Prince Philip. All it does is compare the mtDNA of Alexandra's sister, Grand Duchess Elizabeth, to the imperial remains. The basic fact remains: the mtDNA of the bodies attributed to Alexandra and her children matches that of the Duke of Edinburgh, as we would expect if the bodies are actually those of Alexandra and her children. Likewise, the mtDNA of the body attributed to the last Tsar matches that of the Duke of Fife, exactly as we would expect if the body is that of the last Tsar. But the mtDNA of Anna Anderson does not match either that of the bodies attributed to Anastasia's mother and siblings, nor that of the Duke of Edinburgh. The paper you cite does not contain any discussion of this issue. And it really doesn't even matter if the bodies are the Imperial Family or not. The fact that Anderson/Manahan's mtDNA doesn't match with the Duke of Edinburgh's (and the paper you link to doesn't even mention the Duke of Edinburgh, so I don't see how it's a "direct challenge" on that front) means that she is not Anastasia. Period. You still haven't cited any serious authorities challenging this. Once again, the most this article should say is simply that Anderson/Manahan's supporters have challenged the DNA evidence. Anything more than that is approaching OR, and is not commensurate with the importance of those arguing this. john k 21:58, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Well, it is a challenge in a way since the mtDNA obtained from Philip and the mtDNA of GD Elizabeth are not the same. But the fact that the nuclear DNA tests are obsolete makes contamination very possible, does it not- most likely intentionally. I mean, it certainly would be a huge coincidence that the mtDNA just happened to match a family member of Franziska Schanzkowska- who wore a size '39 shoe and was at least 5'4 and could not possibly have had such inside knowledge which was confirmed by various people who had known Anastasia. To say it has been proven that Anna Anderson was not Anastasia but Franziska Schanzkowska is a little much.

edit: I didn't realize that the mtDNA of the purported skull of Nicholas matched with Fife. I'm starting to wonder if Richard Scweitzer's switch theory is probable. Also, does anyone have anymore info on the alleged Anna Anderson blood sample which didn't have the same mtDNA sequence as the tissue?

I also believe it should be noted that the scientists never said that Anna Anderson was not Grand Duchess Anastasia. Dr. Peter Gill always referred to the samples he was testing as the alleged Anna Anderson samples. When asked if the mystery had been solved, he said, "That is not for me to say."

I deleted the long Greg King quote as it has been disputed alot. However, I added some info on Franziska Schanzkowska under the 'Supporters Cling to Hope' section. --Caleb G--

The article doesn't mention the Duke of Edinburgh - I have no idea if the DNA of Grand Duchess Elizabeth matched that of the Duke of Edinburgh from the article, because it doesn't mention the Duke of Edinburgh. It says it doesn't match the remains. At any rate, it doesn't really matter what the scientists said. We can certainly agree, I hope, that if the tests were accurate and uncontaminated, they would mean that Anderson couldn't possibly be Anastasia. The question that supporters seem to be raising is whether or not the tests were properly conducted, and so forth. The test results, as announced, would preclude the possibility of Anderson being Anastasia. john k 12:38, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm not really sure, but my personal opinion is that there is something about the DNA we do not know. All the evidence prior to DNA suggested she was Anastasia, and not Franziska Schanzkowska. There's too much that cannot be ignored, and we know there was no judicial review for these tests.

All the evidence? That's surely hyperbole. Neither of Anastasia's aunts who met Anderson (Olga and Irene) was willing to identify Anderson as her niece (although both seem to have had some uncertainty). It was only more distant relations or acquaintances who took up the cause strongly. BTW, it seems to me that it is not at all accurate to say that a visit by the Grand Duke of Hesse to Russia during the war would have been treason. The most plausible way one could imagine such a visit occurring is if the Kaiser sent his cousin the Grand Duke as an intermediary to discuss a separate peace with his brother-in-law the Tsar, or some such. I find it hard to see how this would represent treason. This claim is constantly made that the Grand Duke was somehow trying to protect his own ass in some obscure way when he hired investigators to figure out who this girl pretending to be his niece really was. Perhaps he was actually just trying to figure out who this girl pretending to be his niece really was. I'm going to remove that whole section. john k 13:25, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

-Yes, all the evidence. Olga originally thought AA was her niece. "My heart tells me it is she," is an infamous quote of her's. She even wrote 5 letters, one stating, "We shall never abandon you." Then after that, she told a newspaper she had known at first glance this was not her niece, which is purely contradicted by her actions. Pierre Gilliard also referred to AA as 'Her Imperial Higness' but then later spread a whole bunch of lies such as the Grand Duchesses never speaking German although he was the one who scheduled their lessons. Also, the article never stated that Ernst had made the trip, it only said AA asserted it. (Although if you read Ernst's letters, Alexandra's diary, and the testimonies of much of the German Royal Family, the odds are that the trip did take place). The truth is that the chain of custody for the tissue sample WOULD NEVER be accepted in ANY court of law. This mystery is far from over. --Caleb--

BTW, found on usenet a statement posted, claiming to be quoting from correspondence with Dr. Terry Melton, who, according to the usenet poster, performed the DNA testing on AA's samples. Correspondence as folows.

Q: "Certain writers now claim that your results (regarding the Anna Anderson case specifically) are no longer reliable due to recent advances in mtDNA analysis. Do you believe your results are still reliable, or would a re-test using more modern techniques be called for? "

Dr. Melton replies:

Nothing has changed or will change in the technology that would EVER

render those results invalid. What was done was the standard-even today-mtDNA protocol: DNA extraction, PCR amplification of the two hypervariable mtDNA regions, and DNA sequencing, which is what is currently done by all forensic labs practicing mtDNA analysis. What is different today is that the sequencing is automated...however the basic chemistry for this is the same as ever, just adapted to new instrumentation. Extraction and amplification are exactly the same, in fact, my ASCLD/LAB accredited lab is using almost exactly the same protocols that we used at Penn State to do the testing on the Anderson hairs.

To my knowledge, all the labs that did the original testing (FSS,

AFDIL, Penn State) and got the corresponding agreements on the original material (intestinal tissue and hair) are still performing mtDNA analyses that have evolved (very little, as pointed out above) in the same fashion. Therefore there is simply no need to re-test.

You can find this at the alt.talk.royalty archives. I can't vouch for the genuineness of the correspondence, of course, nor even for Dr. Melton's actual involvement in the case, but I assume that the latter can be easily checked, and if true, it would not be too hard for us to contact him ourselves. john k 13:49, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

--I just read the link and noticed that it was posted by Rob M. He has an agenda to prove AA a fraud. He probably never asked the dr. anything. --Caleb G.--

-Perhaps, but that does not change the fact that the chain of custody sucks. Also, one scientist's words aren't enough. Just look at the case with the Romanov bones. Scientists still dispute if the bones are authentic or not. And remember, Greg King never claimed there was any doubt on the mtDNA analysis. However, it is known that mtDNA can easily be contaminated, by breathing on or touching a sample. Dr. Melton tested the hair. If anyone accepts that this hair that just popped out of nowhere by some woman saying, "Hey, I found this in a letter that said, 'Anastasia's hair' on it!" is good enough chain of custody, they are clearly mistaken. I have come to the conclusion that there is no reason for retesting, but that the intestine and hair probably weren't from Anderson. Do you know if it's possible for scientists to obtains DNA from ashes of a burned body? --Caleb--

The Real Anastasia?

I find Anna's arguement pretty convinceing. However, i'm still thinking that she's not infact the " real " Anastasia. After all , Don't you think if the DNA test said she wasn't Anastasia and that she was infact nothing but a factory worker, the real Anastasia would have gotten extremely angry with the false findings and gone as far as had other people check her DNA to prove herself? She did't seem to make any attempt to prove the DNA test was wrong and simply stated that they must have switched her DNA. I don't see why she wouldn't have gotten someone else to take a blood sample, since it wouldn't have been a difficult thing to do considering how much she ahd alerady indured to prove herself.

Huh? The DNA tests were done 10 years after Anna's death and on ALLEGED samples. We don't know who they were from.

Alleged Samples

What we do know is that the chain of custody for the samples tested would not have stood up in any court. The only thing which suggest the intestinal tissue was from Anderson is that the number on the box correlates to the her history number. However, we don't know how the procedure was carried out in 1979. We don't have hard proof this was her tissue. Second of all, we don't have a chain of custody for the hair samples at all. All we have is some woman who claimed to have found them in John Manahan's old bookstore inside of a book with a letter that read, 'Anastasia's hair'. Inside this letter the hair was allegedly found. No STRs were derived from this hair, so we don't have any PROOF that these hairs were from the same person as the intestine or Anna Anderson.

If AA was not Anastasia, there is too much which cannot be explained. How did she manage to know about the play in Tobolsk where Anastasia dressed as a man and her skirt flew up if it wasn't even confirmed until much later by Sydney Gibbes. How did she know of the incident which occured between Empress Alexandra, Anja, Lili Dehn, where the little Anastasia was there if she was not Anastasia (Lili Dehn herself pointed this out). How did she know the exact place Alexandra wrote her initials in her room at Peterhof? How did she know Alexandra had the swastika on her car when it could only be confirmed with a magnifying glass?

These are just some examples of MANY. There are too many coincidences between AN and AA to be overlooked.

The Franziska Schanzkowska story rings very false from beginning to end. How did this investigator attempt to discover AA's identity in a matter of weeks while the Berlin police couldn't even do it after a serious effort of seven years?! Why did Getrude Schanzkowska add belts and buttons to those photographs in court? Why did Pierre Gilliard touch up Franziska's photographs in his book to look like AA? What are the chances AA would he gotten a scar on her foot in the triangular shape of a bayonet from an explosion in a grenade factory? Very low.

The results of the DNA tests can be explained in a few ways. Either the DNA was not her's, was tampered with, was simply misidentified, or we were all fed a lie by the scientists (which I consider very unlikely). The chain of custody would never stand up in court. This is a fact, which is probably why it was never submitted for judicial reviewing.

If AA was not AN, then why are so many documents being hidden from us? It makes no sense. The Danish Royal family still holds Ambassador Zahle's papers, and Grand Duke Andrew's papers are being kept from us as well. The writing is on the wall however. The results of the DNA tests are not what would have been given if DNA had been extracted directly from the body of Anna Anderson Manahan if her body was still in existance. I promise you that.

It is absolutely out of the question that Anna Anderson was anyone other than who she claimed to be. She was recognized by those who had been closest the the young Grand Duchess Anastasia (Lili Dehn and Alexandra Tegleva, Anastasia's nanny). No imposter would have known of such private details of the Imperial where only few were present, such as the incident in which only Alexandra, Lili Dehn, Anja, and the young Anastasia were present. The ears and the handwriting were absolutely identical. In 1957, Lili von Dehn who was one of Empress Alexandra's best friend and had been especially close to Anastasia came to meet Anna Anderson in the Black Forest where she was living. What she found was the young girl she had once known, now old and shriveled up. Her statement reads as follows:

'...I had a real shock when I first saw her, a poor, pale and wrinkled little face! The first impression was of a terrible sadness, but the moment I heard her voice... it was so familar to me, so real- the voice of the Grand Duchess Anastasia... No one can imitate the voice and the way of talking of a person he has never seen before... We spoke of Anja [Anna Vyrbouva], and she knew many details concerning her and her friendship with the Empress. She spoke of an occasion when the empress was very displeased, even angry with Anja. That was only known to the Empress, Anja, myself, and the little grand duchess who was present, but too young to understand the meaning and only remembered the fact. We spoke of the officers we mutually knew, and she never made a mistake... She did not like or want to speak Russian, but the few words which escaped her were absolutely correct; the family names, real Russian ones, were pronounced in exactly the right way. Her hands reminded me very much of the hands of her mother... What can I say after having known her? I certainly cannot be mistaken in her identity.'

This is but one example of many.

'Nearly fifty years ago, Anna Anderson told a story about a sketch she and her sister had put on to amuse their parents during their confinement in Tobolsk. She played a male part, she 'recalled', and and had to borrow a man's dressing-gown. At a pivotal moment in the play, a freak draught made the dressing gown billow up around their thighs, revealing that she was wearing the tsar's long-johns- against the bitter cold of the Siberian winter. The family, said Anna Anderson, had hooted with laughter. The only witnesses from the imperial household who would have been present at that scene, and who are known to have survived, were the two family tutors-both foreigners. One was the English tutor, Sydney Gibbes, and his memoirs were published for the first time in 1975. They include this account of an incident during amatuer theatricals in Tobolsk. "The cast," Gibbes wrote, "had its happiest night with an Edwardian farce by Henry Grattan, called 'Packing Up', ... Anastasia took the male part... at the end of the farce the 'Husband' had to turn his back, open his Dressing-gown as if to take it off- Anastasia used an old one of mine... but a draught got under the gown and whisked its tail up to the middle of her back, showing her sturdy legs and bottom encased Emperor Jaguer's underwear...' So far as exhaustive research can establish, only Anna Anderson had ever before told this vivid ancedote, in private and three decades before the Gibbes memoirs appeared. If Anderson was a phoney, as the seemingly damning DNA evidence now tells us, how did she know the story? That was one of the myriad puzzles that believers in Anna Anderson had to confront when the scientists delivered their verdict. Ian Lilburn, a research historian and the only observer to attend every session of the "Anastasia" appeal process in the German courts, had a calmer response than some. "I think," he said, knowing he sounded like a Luddite and Romanov flat-earther, " there is something we don't know about the DNA."

Olga Alexandrovna and Pierre Gilliard are the real reason people doubted the identity of Anna Anderson as Grand Duchess Anastasia. How anyone can trust them after they have been discredited by their own statements I do not know. Olga later said she had always known Anastasia was dead. If that is true why did she write Anna Anderson five loving and passionate letters which promised 'I will never abandon you'. Pierre Gilliard is a proven liar. He constantly touched up photos in his books and even said that Grand Duchess Anastasia had never learned German, despite the fact that it was he who had scheduled her lessons. The Franziska Schanzkowska story is obviously a lie from beginning to end. As if one detective in a matter of weeks would uncover Anna Anderson's identity when the Berlin police had failed to do so for seven years. This myth should have ended when Doris Wingender touched up a photo of Anna Anderson in court, adding to it buttons and belts in order to make her appear to be Schanzkowska.

It is inconcievable that a fraud would have been recognized by those closest to Anastasia and known the most intimate and secret details of Imperial Family life if she were not genuine. There is absolutely no hard proof that the samples tested for DNA were indeed from Anna Anderson. The chain of custody for the samples would NEVER have been acceptable in ANY court of law.

A Real Survivor

I firmly believe "Anna Anderson" to have been a geniune survivour of the murders at Ekaterinburg. Three anthropoligical studies have all come to the same conclusion that she was Anastasia Nicolaievna and Peter Kurths well researched book plus the numerous friends and family who did recognise her leave me in no doubt at all

I am sick of all the closed minded people who will not give this woman a chance

-I agree with you completely. We don't even know the DNA was even her's, as Martha Jefferson Hospital orginally denied several times even having Anna Anderson tissue. She was not Schanzkowska, I promise you that. It is so sad that even after her death, people persecute Anna/Anastasia after surviving the horrible bloodbath of Ekaterinburg.