Anastasia - A Haemophilia Carrier?

[Olga Bernice]

Yes, it is fixed. Wow, that is very interesting! Thanks for posting it.

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!!

Do you happen to have any information on this . . .?

[Sarushka]

Some carriers of hemophilia -- called "symptomatic carriers" -- exhibit milder symptoms of the disease itself, such as a lower clotting factor, heavy menstrual periods, prolonged bleeding after tooth extractions or surgery, and a higher risk of post-partum bleeding. Read more here. Page 5 even shows some figures for bleeding related to tonsillectomy.

I also remember reading somewhere that carriers tend to have babies with higher birth weights (which could explain why the imperial children were all 9+ pounds at birth), but so far I haven't been able to relocate a source to verify that information.

[Romanov_History_Buff]

Here's another good one to read

Hemophilia

Also talks of replacement therapy to treat it... what it is, etc!

[jehan]

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.

I was five when I had my tonsils out.  I also hemorrhaged and nearly died.  I am not a hemophilia carrier.  The doctors were shocked.  (I also occasionally suffer from severe nosebleeds).  While these things may or may not be symptoms of a Hemophilia carrier- they also might just be coincidental and have nothing to do with it.

I tend to think it was Maria who had the gene.

[Sunny]

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

In the video i was talking about they showed the remains  of alexei and another human - they were not skeletons, nor skulls, just fragments of bones, that after analyse, showed to be human. They didnì't resemble to a skeleton at all! Just pieces of bones - it was like seeing Csi Las Vegas!
Not joking now, this is what i saw in the video - it's so interesting, you really should see it on Youtube. I saw both in english and in italian, just to be sure i had well understood. Because of the bones were so few, it wass very hard extract DNA. as i said.

I remember they said the bones were so few and in so bad conditions 'cause the Bolsheviks had tried to burn these two corpses. In fact, there were ashes in that graves, and those pieces of skeletons were partly burned, too. In fact Yurovskij wrote they tried to burn two corpses - Alexei and his mother, but they took Demidova instead of Alix. In fact, it turned out they took neither Alix nor Demidova, but one of the girls - Maria or Anastasia, we still don't know for certain. (you find all this stuff about Yurovskij in The Fate of The Romanovs)

So, it's impossibile to say how tall the girl with alexei was. what the forensics have found is that there are two different human beings - a young male and a young female. the male turned out to be genetically son of the skeletons identified as Nicholas and Alix; the female had 13 genes in common with the male, so they were without doubt brother and sister.
Alas, genetics can't say wether the girl was Maria or Anastasia.

[Maria-Nikolaevna]

Some carriers of hemophilia -- called "symptomatic carriers" -- exhibit milder symptoms of the disease itself, such as a lower clotting factor, heavy menstrual periods, prolonged bleeding after tooth extractions or surgery, and a higher risk of post-partum bleeding.quote]

I read some where that all the girls had hevy menstrul periods.

[Olga Bernice]

I didn't know any of that! Wow, I'm certainly glad I started this topic - I've already learned so much just on this thread!

I had always thought it was Anastasia that was found with Alexei - maybe because I knew of the survivor legends before I started to research the Romanovs, and all the movies were "Anastasia" this or "Anastasia" that. I had thought that there must have been some truth to that . . . or is there?

Before joining this forum, I didn't research the haemophilia issue, so I never had any opinions on who was a carrier or not. The evidence seems to point to Maria being the carrier, not Anastasia - honest, I didn't know this before, otherwise I would have put it under the "Maria" topic  - but all four of them could have been carriers, that I see now too.

If anybody has anything else to post, then by all means post it, because I'm certainly very interested!

[Sarushka]

I had always thought it was Anastasia that was found with Alexei - maybe because I knew of the survivor legends before I started to research the Romanovs, and all the movies were "Anastasia" this or "Anastasia" that. I had thought that there must have been some truth to that . . . or is there?

The American forensic team concluded Anastasia was the missing sister.

However, the media has generally accepted the Russian team's assertion that Maria was missing -- after all there is a tomb marked "Anastasia Nikolaevna" in the Peter and Paul fortress.

[Olga Bernice]

Now, THAT is INTERESTING!!! Rumors and things still spring up when the name is written in stone, I suppose.

Then again, wouldn't it have been smarter to leave the grave unmarked until they found for certain who was missing? If I'm not mistaken, the rest of the remains were only found in 2007. That means that Maria is buried under Anastasia's name? This is kind of complicated.

I wonder, though - why did the public make so much movies and things on Anastasia, when, as I said before, the remains were not found until 2007, so it could very well have been Maria who was missing, and Anastasia buried peacefully in her own grave? Was Anastasia just more appealing to the press - a jokester, prankster, and the like?

I guess we might never know.

[Sarushka]

Then again, wouldn't it have been smarter to leave the grave unmarked until they found for certain who was missing? If I'm not mistaken, the rest of the remains were only found in 2007. That means that Maria is buried under Anastasia's name? This is kind of complicated.

No one really knows which sister was buried where. It's a matter of which team's evidence you find most compelling. The Russian team believes Anastasia was found in 1991, and so that's how the tomb is marked.

In fact, the debate is not just about whether Maria or Anastasia was present in the 1991 grave. The identity of TWO skeletons is disputed. The Russians believe #5 is Tatiana and #6 is Anastasia. The Americans believe #5 is Maria and #6 is Tatiana. So it's possible that Tatiana's tomb is mis-labeled. (Incidentally, it's not written in stone -- the "stones" are only an imitation of marble.)

If you'd like to learn more about the controversy, I'd suggest reading Robert Massie's The Romanovs: The Final Chapter. Chapters 18-20 in Fate of the Romanovs also tackle these issues.

Was Anastasia just more appealing to the press - a jokester, prankster, and the like?

Possibly. And also the coincidence of her name meaning 'resurrection.'

Mainly though, I think Anastasia's popularity is due to Anna Anderson's fame as a claimant. (There have actually been over 200 claimants over the years -- most of them pretending to be Maria or Aleksei.)


But we're getting a bit off-topic now. ;^)

[Olga Bernice]

Yes I suppose so but it was so interesting I just had to inquire!

In case you couldn't tell, I don't know much about haemophilia, other than it's a blood clotting disease, boys can get it, girls are carriers, etc. Since it is a blood disease, could the forensic team tell whether they had haemophilia, or were a carrier of it, if their only research was the bones?

P.S. If you want me to start another thread on haemophilia somewhere else, I will, if you think it gets too far off the topic of Anastasia.

[blessOTMA]

So, it's impossible to say how tall the girl with alexei was. 

Exactly. One must go by the tallness of the youngest remains in the main grave. It's amazing they found even fragments of the other two so many years later. I imagine the metal found with them helped.

[Holly]

There are definitely more signs/anecdotal evidence that points to Maria as being a carrier.

Hemorrhages are not coincidental -- especially if you bleed abnormally heavy, as you pointed out. There is always a cause.

Quite honestly, I've never understood how anyone could think the missing daughter to Maria. There is absolutely no evidence pointing to the identity being Maria at all, and quite a bit in favor of her being among the 1991 remains. If the Russians hadn't continued to label the new remains as Maria, I very highly doubt anyone would hold that belief today.

[Olga Bernice]

Hemorrhages are not coincidental -- especially if you bleed abnormally heavy, as you pointed out. There is always a cause.

Holly,
By "cause", do you mean that anybody who has hemorrhages MUST BE a carrier of haemophilia, or that there could have been another reason? Maybe you had high blood pressure and you were put under strain, and you started to hemorrhage (or is that even possible)??
Thanks,
Olga Bernice

[Holly]

Of course anyone who hemorrhages isn't a carrier of haemophilia. A hemorrhage is simply a term that means an abnormal loss of blood and that is not something that happens simply by coincidence, especially with young people. Blood pressure can certainly cause abnormal bleeding and especially frequent nosebleeds, but it would be very odd for Maria to have had high enough blood pressure to cause enough bleeding to scare her doctor when she was so young. When hemorrhaging occurs with tonsillectomies it usually occurs post-operation. (I'm a phlebotomist and work with blood all day so I've seen my fair share of bleeding.)

Anyway, don't want to get too off-topic here. I don't remember if they tested each of the daughters' remains for haemophilia or not. I'm sure there's a good chance another of the girls was also a carrier. Olga A. stated that she believed each of them bled more than she felt was normal.