Anastasia - A Haemophilia Carrier?

[Olga Bernice]

Hi everyone -
I have a question. Obviously Alexei was a haemophiliac, so it would be reasonable that at least one of his sisters had the gene. Some sources say that all four of the girls had higher blood levels and other signs of haemophilia, but on one of the threads I was reading it said that only the skeleton found with Alexei had the gene. That was either Maria or Anastasia -most likely Anastasia - so I was wondering, can anybody find anything that supports Anastasia being a haemophilia carrier?
Many thanks,
Olga Bernice

[Sarushka]

Actually, it was the youngest set of female remains in the original (1991) grave that carried the gene for Type B hemophilia.

Personally, I believe Anastasia was the missing skeleton, and that Maria was the hemophilia carrier.

[blessOTMA]

I'm smacking my head because I just posted elsewhere it was the sister found with AN who was the carrier ...which I read somewhere...but of course it's as you say here since  I agree Anastasia was the missing skeleton and Maria the carrier . I'll be running over to the other thread pronto to correct my statement! Thanks for the info 

Actually, it was the youngest set of female remains in the original (1991) grave that carried the gene for Type B hemophilia.
Personally, I believe Anastasia was the missing skeleton, and that Maria was the hemophilia carrier.

[Sunny]

I agree with saruska; do you remember Olga A writing in her memories about Maria when in 1914 she had a surgeon operation to her tonsils? She ad un unexplainable hemorrage and the doctor was shocked. I really don't thing Dr. Botkin wasn't able to operate properly; at the contrary i'm quite sure this was a symptom of Haemophilia carrier.
About the other girls, i thinks we can say nothing sure - unless the other corpses were analyzed for this. I don't like forensic medicine (my stomach, alas, is not strong enough to bear it, even if talking about my darling romanovs!) so i don't know much about it, but i knew about the corpse identified as a haemophilia carrier, and i'm pretty sure it was Maria. Poor darling.

[Sarushka]

I'm smacking my head because I just posted elsewhere it was the sister found with AN who was the carrier ...which I read somewhere...

Not entirely your fault -- there's at least one article out there that has it wrong.

[Forum Admin]

It will never actually be known which sister it was, sadly.  I can only tell you that Bob Atchison was given the privilege by Dr. Avdonin to actually see the original remains found, and Bob was convinced from the first moment that it was Anastasia, not Maria and thus Maria was the "missing" girl found with Alexei.  Now, the Russians had no influence on his decision, and why is this of any meaning? Well, Bob was trained to be a professional portrait artist, and studied under Chuck Close (google him), and he is of course utterly familiar with what each member of the Imperial Family looked like.  However, it is, in the end, just his opinion.

[Maria-Nikolaevna]

In my opinion I beleve it was anastasia who was the carrier or they all were. Sadly to say.

[Ekaterina-Nikolaevna]

I always thought Anastasia to be a carrier and Maria the skeleton with Alexei.
We can only imagine what kind of blow it would have been for poor Alexandra to find that not only does her son have hemophilia, but her daughter carries it and her sons are at risk of having the disease themselves.

[GrandDuchessAndrea]

I have a question--I know I could probably find in somewhere else, but likely in the company of horrifing pictures of the poor Romanovs skeletons, which I do NOT like looking at.
What are the heights of the two skeletons in question? The girl found with Alexei, and the youngest one in the grave--the hemophilia carrier.

[Clemence]

I always thought Anastasia to be a carrier and Maria the skeleton with Alexei.
We can only imagine what kind of blow it would have been for poor Alexandra to find that not only does her son have hemophilia, but her daughter carries it and her sons are at risk of having the disease themselves.

I always believed alexandra knew of that possibility ...

[Sunny]

I have a question--I know I could probably find in somewhere else, but likely in the company of horrifing pictures of the poor Romanovs skeletons, which I do NOT like looking at.
What are the heights of the two skeletons in question? The girl found with Alexei, and the youngest one in the grave--the hemophilia carrier.

I remind the girl found with alexei being not a skeleton, but some spare bones. It was very difficult to extract and analyse DNA from such few and damaged bones, so i think it' impossible to suppose a height - that's why we don't know exactly who she was, Anastasia or Maria.
Or, at least, this is what it was said in the National Geographic video about the bones. Did you see it? Hope they said the truth.

[Clemence]

sunny was there any clue why that scheleton was in such bad conditions?

[blessOTMA]

What are the heights of the two skeletons in question? The girl found with Alexei, and the youngest one in the grave--the hemophilia carrier.

Many decide the question for themselves based on the height of the remains found in the main grave...and that they are too tall to be AN...what I find also remarkable is the condition of this daughter's skull. It's by far the most intact I have seen ....the others have evidence of extensive post mortem violence, while that one does not.

[Sarushka]

The height of the skeletons in the original graves differs according to which forensic team examined the bones. Here's a chart I made a while back:



I'm 90% sure these figures were taken from Taina Tsarskikh Ostankov, but they could also be from The Romanovs: The Final Chapter.



Sunny is correct that the bones in the second grave were too few and too fragmented to construct a skeleton.


(Please let me know if the image shows up or not -- my computer's having trouble with pictures today.)

[Olga Bernice]

do you remember Olga A writing in her memories about Maria when in 1914 she had a surgeon operation to her tonsils? She ad un unexplainable hemorrage and the doctor was shocked. I really don't thing Dr. Botkin wasn't able to operate properly; at the contrary i'm quite sure this was a symptom of Haemophilia carrier.

I was aware that Maria got her tonsils operated on when she was 15, but I never heard of her having a hemorrage (not to say it didn't happen, of course). If girls could not get haemophilia, then how could she have had a hemorrage, if she was only a carrier?

Apparently I have much to learn on this particular subject!!

PS Sarushka, it's not showing up on mine, it's just a red X