the 'mundane' idea - a paradox and a problem

[sokolova]

If the DNA evidence had shown that AA was unrelated to both FS and AN then I think I'd go with the 'mundane' hypothesis - but the fact that the DNA evidence seems to show AA  WAS related to FS raises the whole question to a new level.

I'd like to ask everyone to bear with this newbie and think about it for a minute: .....

Everyone agrees that identifying AA as FS was probably  done for  propaganda; that pics were doctored and that AA was more or less 'set up'. Yet,  now, more that fifty years later the DNA comes along and supports this identification.

This means 1 of 3 things:

• 
  1. That the people who tried to discredit AA by claiming she was FS were amazingly lucky and by chance she really WAS this obscure girl they just plucked out of the air.
  
  OR
  
  2. That they were really lucky in a different way and AA's DNA just concidentally (with at best a 1 in 300 chance)
  resembles FS.
  
  OR
  
  3. The DNA tets were set up too

It has to be one of these three, doesn't it? And when you think about it none of them are mundane. They all require either huge  (almost unbelievable) coincidences or actual real deception.

So, doesn't the whole thing about the DNA  versus the non-physical evidence actually raise more (many more) baffling questions?

Sokolova

[rskkiya]

Everyone agrees that identifying AA as FS was probably  done for  propaganda; that pics were doctored and that AA was more or less 'set up'. Yet,  now, more that fifty years later the DNA comes along and supports this identification.

Sokolova

WHAT? Who is willing to suggest that three independant labs all doctored their evidence?

I do not understand your statement --Please rephrase!

rskkiya

[Helen_Azar]

Sokolova,

I think everyone has pretty much agreed (even AA's biggest supporters) that "doctoring" the DNA results was impossible.

So now we are left with 1. and 2.

1. That the people who tried to discredit AA by claiming she was FS were amazingly lucky and by chance she really WAS this obscure girl they just plucked out of the air. *

2. That they were really lucky in a different way and AA's DNA just concidentally (with at best a 1 in 300 chance) resembles FS. **

*They may have tried to "stroke" the evidence, but that doesn't mean that they weren't correct about her identity. It's sort of like what the police do with thteir suspects: they know someone is guilty, they just make it look like they are if it doesn't already . So no, I don't think it was just some amazing stroke of luck.  

**I must point out here that AA's mtDNA did not just "resemble" FS's relative, it was identical to his.

Yes, these two choices is what we are left with. But this is why, despite all the alleged evidence against the fact that AA was FS, in light of these two points, it is difficult to accept the fact that she was not.

[sokolova]

Calm down rskkiya! I'm sorry I confused you. But don't reach for the indignant bold button just yet!  

I don't mean the DNA evidence was doctored.
I mean there's obvious evidence that the original identification of AA as FS (back around seventy years ago)  was  - at the very least - helped along with some dubious practices and was quite likely made up. And this seems to sit oddly  with the DNA evidence, which (as we all know)  suggests the identification is real.

As I said - every one of the three potential explanations for this anomaly seems so unlikely...

If AA was FS, then why is the non-DNA evidence for it so murky and so seemingly contrived and dubious? Why the evidence of tampering, both with witnesses and physical evidence?  You don't need to tamper with evidence if you have the right girl, so why would they have done the tampering if AA really was FS?

See, it doesn't jive.

But...if AA wasn't FS then why is there any DNA match at all when the odds are said to be  at least 300-1 against  it happening by chance? Could this really happen by simple coincidence? Does that make any sense?

Again, it doesn't jive.

But the third possibility - that the DNA was doctored   well that seems just as far-fetched, or even more so.

Okay all three explanations seem impossible - but one of them must be true. Or is there something I am missing which ties it all up?

BTW - I am not trying to claim AA was AN. I am totally agnostic about all of that, I am just quite troubled by the obvious inconsistencies in the evidence at this point and hope other people are too. Something isn't adding up. I have no idea why  right now, does anyone else?

peace, calm and ever-open, searching minds to all!

Sokolova

[rskkiya]

Sokolova,

.  

**I must point out here that AA's mtDNA did not just "resemble" FS's relative, it was identical to his.

But this is why, despite all the alleged evidence against the fact that AA was FS, in light of these two points, it is difficult to accept the fact that she was not.

Sokolova

I do hope that Helen A's  post has explained the evidence that most of the people here are working with, and of course you are free to doubt the "AA -FS" connection (there is a separate thread for this topic) although the DNA evidence is not the best way to "prove" the paradox.

rskkiya

[Helen_Azar]

If AA was FS, then why is the non-DNA evidence for it so murky and so seemingly contrived and dubious? Why the evidence of tampering, both with witnesses and physical evidence?  You don't need to tamper with evidence if you have the right girl, so why would they have done the tampering if AA really was FS?

But...if AA wasn't FS then why is there any DNA match at all when the odds are said to be  at least 300-1 against  it happening by chance? Could this really happen by simple coincidence? Does that make any sense?

I think that if more people realized just how powerful DNA evidence really is (many people don't seem to, even though they say they do), they would pay more attention to it and less to the other evidence. You can offer various reasonable explanations for the other seemingly contradictory evidence (although on this forum you get jumped on when you try - I know I probably will be for this particular statement   ), but it is practically impossible to offer explanation for the existing DNA evidence in this case, if we are to assume that AA was not FS. So there you have it.  

[sokolova]

Sokolova,


*They may have tried to "stroke" the evidence, but that doesn't mean that they weren't correct about her identity. It's sort of like what the police do with thteir suspects: they know someone is guilty, they just make it look like they are if it doesn't already

Hi Helen.
I don't really agree that it's okay for the police (or anyone) to plant evidence to secure convictions providing they 'know'  the person is guilty. I think that's how innocent people can end up in jail. Intuition isn't a valid substitute for evidence!  

And then of course to say  'oh well they probably knew it was her and that was why they invented the evidence'  kind of begs the obvious question - if they didn't have any evidence how did they know it was her?
 

The way I  see it there is a big anomaly here. If AA really was  FS then why did the people identifying her need to fabricate the evidence? Why not just find her family and let them id her? End of story.


But if it wasn't her, then what about the DNA?

**I must point out here that AA's mtDNA did not just "resemble" FS's relative, it was identical to his.

Yes I know, that's exactly my point. The chance of it being a coincidence are so small. But this doesn't fit with the earlier evidence of a fit-up.  On the one hand the obviously planted early evidence for AA being FS, and on the other the much later DNA evidence that shows she really was her.

Yes, these two choices is what we are left with. But this is why, despite all the alleged evidence against the fact that AA was FS, in light of these two points, it is difficult to accept the fact that she was not.

Yes it's difficult to accept she wasn't FS, but equally difficult - given the evidence - to accept she was! That's the puzzle! :-/

Sokolova

[Helen_Azar]

Hi Helen.
I don't really agree that it's okay for the police (or anyone) to plant evidence to secure convictions providing they 'know'  the person is guilty. I think that's how innocent people can end up in jail. Intuition isn't a valid substitute for evidence!  

And then of course to say  'oh well they probably knew it was her and that was why they invented the evidence'  kind of begs the obvious question - if they didn't have any evidence how did they know it was her?
  

The way I  see it there is a big anomaly here. If AA really was  FS then why did the people identifying her need to fabricate the evidence? Why not just find her family and let them id her? End of story.


But if it wasn't her, then what about the DNA?


Yes I know, that's exactly my point. The chance of it being a coincidence are so small. But this doesn't fit with the earlier evidence of a fit-up.  On the one hand the obviously planted early evidence for AA being FS, and on the other the much later DNA evidence that shows she really was her.



Yes it's difficult to accept she wasn't FS, but equally difficult - given the evidence - to accept she was! That's the puzzle! :-/

Sokolova

Oh I never said it was ok to try to stroke the evidence, in fact we are not even sure that they did. I don't think it is obvious at all that they planted anything, it is just possible. They may have presented what they knew. And of course we all know that this case went far beyond "let them find her family and id her", it was far more complicated than thar. But after all, FS dissapeared at around the same time as AA appeared, she looked a lot like her, some people came out and said it was her, etc... But all that is really irrelevant right now. What I actually said was, that maybe they did try to make the evidence look more than what it was, maybe they didn't, but that doesn't mean that this proves that it wasn't her, that's all... I don't really care what they did or didn't do back then, I am going by DNA and statistics,as any reasonable person would.  

[Annie]

 But after all, FS dissapeared at around the same time as AA appeared, she looked a lot like her, some people came out and said it was her, etc...

I really don't understand why anyone would doubt her being FS because of these very things, as well as the DNA of course. I don't think it was propaganda that AA was labeled FS, it was good detective work by a PI. There was no great conspiracy to deny Anastasia, I'd think that theory should be long since put to bed. The reason the relatives denied her was because IT WASN'T HER!!  There are also no other suspects as to who else she might have been, and since she did look just like FS and have the same DNA and vanish at the same time, well, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck..

I really don't want to get into my speeches again, but obviously this new person hasn't read them so I must paraphrase the general idea. There really is no 'murky' area here when we have proof. The conflicts on clothing and language skills are just mistakes and human error, incorrect memories. It was likely the clothes weren't even really hers after all those years in a busy boarding house. Even if the lady wasn't lying she could have been honestly mistaken. I've had people send me back the wrong baby clothes I'd loaned them, getting them confused with another friend's. Same with the height, as I said about the many people who all met the famous rock star yet all reported him at different heights. Then there is the mind's eye distortion, like the story I told of how 5 of us looking at a house recalled the bathtub a different color and we all turned out to be wrong! These little tidbits are so subject to error I woudn't even think they made any difference beside the convincing DNA and photographic evidence. Then there's the family, and as I've posted many times, the family had MANY good reasons to deny her and none to accept her (she and they could have been held responsible for a lot of bad things, or she could even have ended up in a Nazi death camp for being mentally ill!) so that means nothing either, it makes perfect sense they denied her for their own good as well as hers.

After all this going on for months, I have sadly come to the conclusion that some people just plain don't want the story to end, and they will come up with anything to keep from solving it. The 'open mind' thing can only go so far when there IS a right answer, and it's been proven. If that's not good enough for you, forgive me, but it never will be, as I've said in my 'the truth what will it take' thread.

[lexi4]

Thank you all for this discussion. I think the DNA evidence speaks for itself. I also think that had there been any merit to AA's claims in the beginning, the surviving members of the IF would have shown more interest. I think there are so many people who want to believe that someone in the IF survived that horrible massacree. I can understand that. I would love to think there was a survivor. However, we may never know. What we do know is that the remaining members of the IF had very good reason to doubt AA's claims. Decades later, we were able to confirm their doubts because of what we now know about DNA. But I have to tell you, I never did believe AA, if that makes any difference. Whatever happened in the past, wtih evidence etc., is now moot because we have the DNA.

[AGRBear]

...[in part]...

Yes it's difficult to accept she wasn't FS, but equally difficult - given the evidence - to accept she was! That's the puzzle! :-/

Sokolova

I can understand your difficulty.  I'm  in the same boat as you.

The evidence which may prove AA was not FS is in Penny's discovery that FS and Gertrude may not have the same mothers.  If this is true, then the numbers daveK has presented goes one step backward and the numbers are far highter and ranges from 1 generation to maybe 10 or even 25 generations back into their family genealogy.....

One would think that such information about the different wives of Anton S. [FS and Gertrude's father]  would have been told to the scientists but then I'm not sure the members of Gertrude's family even knew about Anton having been married three times.

So, until that information is presented,  I'm on the fense on this one, and, like you, still looking around and speculating.

AGRBear

[Lanie]

If FS and Gertrude had different mothers how come the mtDNA matched with Karl Maucher, then?  I'd say the different mother thing is just a rumor.  DNA says she was FS, so I'm pretty darn sure she was FS.

[lexi4]

Ok. Someone help me out on this. I just don't see how you can dispute DNA evidence. I also agree that there was a reason the family denied AA. It was because she wasn't Anastasia. I have the same questions Lanie does about the different mothers thing. Perhaps Helen can enlighten us here. Helen?

[Helen_Azar]

I am not expert on the FS case of course, but you don't really have to be one because you can just base your reasoning on logic here. I don't really know where the idea that Gertrude and FS had different mothers came from, one day it just appeared here. I don't know if there is any real basis to this theory because no appropriate evidence of this was ever provided, other than "he said this and she said that" and "we think this" and "trust me at my word because you will see later" type of thing.
I am not sure what the people who are promoting the "different mothers" theory are getting at exactly, other than to show that something was wrong with the DNA results. The only thing that would make sense is that if, in fact, they did have different mothers, then the DNA results were rigged because then FS and Gertrude's grandson would not have identical mtDNA. Since we have all (or most of us anyway) agreed that the DNA results could not have been rigged (and there were numerous discussions about that in the past),  I am of course inclined to believe that Gertrude and FS must have had the same mothers because the mtDNA's matched, and the chances are very very low to non-existant that this match would be random (something like less than 1 in 8000 or 0.000125% - see the DNA thread for an explanation of these stats). This means that AA had to be FS and she also had to be Gertrude's full sister.  The fact that she also looked a lot like FS adds to these odds (and I am not necessarily going by her picture but by the fact that Felix, FS's brother said so himself). The fact that FS dissapeared and AA appeared at around the same time adds even more to this. But even without the last two pieces of evidence and only with the DNA statistics it's very clear to most reasonable people who AA was.
Of course we can continue going around in circles about the same mother/different mother thing, and some other evidence that is not really provable one way or another, but we won't get anywhere. Since the DNA results are the most reliable and straight forward piece of evidence in this whole case, I am going to go with that and not some other ambiguous theories that may or may not have any basis, unless these theories are clearly proven otherwise (which you realy can't do like you can with DNA). So this is my take on it.

[Annie]

I also think it's interesting that while some highly touted the 'half sister' thing, when it was unable to be proven, it's now being claimed that Gertrude's birth records cannot be found (all the other kids have birthdates) How convenient, now nothing will ever be proven and the wild speculation can go on. But for me, the fact that no evidence can be produced, and that the truth seems to have 'vanished', (perhaps 'rubbed out' when it didn't say what it was supposed to?) makes me feel even more strongly that they were whole sisters and there was nothing to this other than some people 'grabbing at straws.'