101 Reasons AA was GD Anastasia

[Annie]

CorisCapnSkip, I like how you are always relating this to different cases with parallels to this one. I do that too, but usually get jumped on by AA supporters saying 'what does that have to do with it' well, plenty! It takes a great lateral thinker (highly intelligent I'm told) to make these associations and analogies, and they DO relate to the AA case and are relevant for discussion in comparison. Thanks for all your interesting posts!

In the case of Jefferson, I am from VA and I know that a lot of people didn't want to believe these things on him. I never knew the one about him having the child at 65. I knew he had the ones with Sally Hemmings, who was his wife's half sister (she was the daughter of Martha Wayles Jefferson's father and his slave concubine) so she may have had a resemblance to his dearly departed Martha that attracted him. Either way, he is proven to have fathered some of the children. His nephews claimed some of them and were probably fathers of some too, but since they were sons of Jefferson's sister, they'd have had Jefferson's mtDNA, but not the same Y chromosome Jefferson had (mtDNA is maternal, Y of course paternal) so any male child tracing to Jefferson's Y chromosome was certainly his son.

I am not one of those Virginia snobs who doesn't want to hear the story. I am glad to know he had other children, four of the six he had with is wife died in infancy, and only one outlived him. I also want to point out that Jefferson never cheated on his wife, all these liasons happened after her untimely death in childbirth with their sixth child (who also died). He loved her deeply and had she lived I don't think he'd have had these affairs.

[CorisCapnSkip]

Great minds...thanks for saying I have one and appreciating my posts!

I knew that about Jefferson being in love with his wife, but didn't realize Sally Hemings was a close relative of hers.  That makes it even more interesting!  I used to hate him for even owning slaves when he wrote the Declaration of Independence, and his having children with one (which I believed as soon as I heard it--after the revelations about JFK I didn't question and basically believed anything bad about anybody, including Lord Mountbatten being a mercenery moneygrubber--sorry, Lord Mountbatten  --) made it even worse.  Now it seems the situation was a lot more complex.  He really was in love with Sally and treated her and the offspring as much as family and as little like property as was allowable in the time and place.  I saw a program about Monticello which showed how it was designed so the slaves could come and go without ever being seen at their work--so obviously he must have felt some degree of guilt or conflict for keeping them.  As for him "sharing" with his nephews--that's too "yuk" for me even making allowances!  

Being a Virginian, did you ever meet Anna Anderson?

[Annie]

Sally was left to TJ and Martha in her father's will because he knew she was his daughter and he knew TJ and Martha would treat her better than Martha's two older sisters. She probably had some family resemblance to Martha and this is one reason he fell for her, especially since Martha was dead. So it wasn't a low down slave raping type of thing, I think he really loved her, and if times weren't what they were he may have made it more open. I did hear one of his sons by Sally had red hair and played the violin- just like Jefferson. I do believe he loved and cared for these kids, but a man of his position in those days couldn't let it be known so iit was probably a 'forbidden love' thing which can be very romantic in stories.Of course we'll never really know.

I don't know if he 'shared' her with the nephews, their relationships may have happened at different times, like when he was in France or DC.

One more thing on Jefferson, he DID originally write a passage in the Declaration of Independence for the freeing of the slaves, and said he was willing to give his up, but all of the reps from other slaveholding states walked out and refused to sign it if it were left in, so they had to take it out. This was not the only thing omitted by far, but maybe the most famous and important.

I am sorry to say I never met AA. I am from the Richmond area, and in the early 80's did a lot of driving around for fun in the Charlottesville and Shenandoah Valley area with my boyfriend/future husband and I used to say I wanted to go track her down. I didn't know until after she was gone just how easy her house was to find on University circle, or how really accessible she was. I regret it very much. We do have members here who have met her and told about it.

[CorisCapnSkip]

If people who were not present at an incident say one thing, and a person who was present says another, the word of the person who was present is regarded as testimony and the word of those not present as hearsay.  (Legal speak.)

[Mazukov]

Ok there is no, I’ll repeat no solid evidence that AA was AN, in fact what is there points to the fact she was not.  Why on earth do you all insist on saying that she was when in fact she wasn’t

[OlgaNRomanovaFan]

Ok there is no, I’ll repeat no solid evidence that AA was AN, in fact what is there points to the fact she was not.

Exactly! If there were solid evidence surely her claim would have been proven, if not in her lifetime, then at least by now.

[CorisCapnSkip]

If the real Anastasia spoke Russian, English, French, and German, and Anna Anderson spoke only German until she had a chance to learn the others, and then not as well as Anastasia knew them, that is a big strike against Anna Anderson.

[Mazukov]

There isn’t just one strike but many.simply saying she never was AN

[Annie]

Yes, there are many strikes, I could write a book myself.

The languages are some of the worst giveaways though. Even her supporters are hard pressed to find evidence of her knowing French. AA's English was horrible and her accent far from anything British(I have heard her on videos and tapes) Hers was not the voice of a girl raised around parents speaking proper English with British accents. It sounded more like the voice of a Polish factory worker forced to learn it in a hurry on her way to NYC in 1928. Felix Y. said she didn't know English (or Russian or French) when he met her in 1927.

[OlgaNRomanovaFan]

Yes, there are many strikes, I could write a book myself

I wish someone would write a unbiased account of her life and claim. Whilst Kurth's book is invaluable, it is obviously biased in her favour. I don't know if such a book could be written though without author bias.

AA's English was horrible and her accent far from anything British(I have heard her on videos and tapes) Hers was not the voice of a girl raised around parents speaking proper English with British accents.

Where did you get to hear tapes of her? I've only ever seen pictures.

[Annie]

I wish someone would write a unbiased account of her life and claim. Whilst Kurth's book is invaluable, it is obviously biased in her favour. I don't know if such a book could be written though without author bias.

Me too, but sadly the only people who write books about her are those who try to prove her claim. I guess writers who don't believe in her feel no need to state their case, since the DNA proves it. But we do need one, as a 'source' to show a side Kurth's doesn't, and to update things, but we need this book written by totally UNBIASED historians with no ties to Kurth.

Where did you get to hear tapes of her? I've only ever seen pictures.

I have seen her and heard her on several tv specials over the years, the only one I know of on tape is a NOVA special on AA/AN. She speaks there.

[OlgaNRomanovaFan]

The first time I read Kurth I believed he had written as fair handed an account as someone who supports AA could have. On further reading however I find I dislike the way he portrays Gilliard and Olga, assuming that money and family dominance swayed them. Even his coverage of the trial was completly biased as he used the descriptions of the proceedings as described by Dominique Aucleres [sp?] a clear AA supporter.
With the amount of debate still surrounding AA I should imagine that no author could write about her without someone claiming they were biased or had an agenda.

CorisCapnSkip, I find all the links you make with other cases fascinating. Thanks for the info and comparison!

[Mazukov]

Please don’t get me wrong here with this. But it has always amazed me just how people can support AA and her false claims. I think the most important evidence against her, is the fact that she could not speak English, Russian, French. From the time she learned how to talk she was speaking in two tongs one English the other Russian fluently. AA could not speak English fluent I seen the TV special  your talking of Annie  that is not the tong of a person who grew up speaking English.

[CorisCapnSkip]

Not until coming to this board did I realize the Imperial Family spoke proper British English.  I had long known Anna Anderson/Anastasia Manahan did not.  I saw the "Good Morning, America" segment with her and her husband Jack Manahan, showing her as a rather dotty, disheveled old lady with a lot of cats.  At the end, Jack asked her if she wouldn't like this matter settled "in your own lifetime" and she replied, "I spit on 'em."  I found it a shockingly coarse answer from a supposedly royal person, but then later, looking at the attitudes of some royalty and going over Kurth's book, I could see this as a reply of someone who'd survived hard times and lived a difficult life of not being believed.

On the "Nova" program I recall her saying something to the effect of, "Please not to speak of this dirt...please not.  It is not like you are sitting reading a book--you are living all this dirt."  It was very European-accented, ungrammatical English, nothing like proper.

[CorisCapnSkip]

Check out "The Love of the Marvellous and the Disbelief of the True" from the book "Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds."  http://www.litrix.com/madraven/madne010.htm  Strange to say, it was omitted from every printed copy I could find of the book, so I printed it from the online copy because I find it so relevant every time I discuss historical controversies.