Interesting topic.
For me, I think having certain life experiences in THIS life, can make one readily identify deeply with the personalities amongst the Romanovs and the Russian Revolutions because they are human reactions to life tha are well documented. I think it is possible that mental instability combined with this identification can create the delusion that one actually was a Romanov prince etc....especially because of the beauty, romance and intensity of all things Russian and about the Romanovs.
I also think, in a spiritual sense, when one meditates and observes the self, the common thread of spirituality and religion seems to agree on that
1) we are more than just the body
2) that our natural state of thinking is distorted or unbalanced in some way. (the ego, the self-will etc)
3) that in becoming one with more than who we think we are, we transcend the sufferings created by self/ego and experience peace,heaven etc. we find peace, we find oneness with all things, we find "god".
In relation to this topic, if we add that upon meditation we can observie our bodies and thoughts, how can we possibly JUST be our bodies and thoughts, who is observing, what part is observing....and who is observing that part.
I sense that the oneness of all life, creation, matter, God , the unvierse whatever you call it, is connected.
If so, when a person dies, what happens to the matter, creation, life, God part of them. it goes to a location called Heaven? or does it transcend. i dont know. but i know the body breaks down and the majority, which is made of water, would return to the Earth, in that sense we all carry elements of the dead within us, because we are made up mostly of water.
if any of these parts of the departed did reconfigure into a new self, would we still only be labelling and creating a false self when really if were once "mr romanov" we are now "mr smith" but who we really and truly are is a spark of life, of the divine and that this spark is NOT SEPARATE from the whole entiirety of ALL CREATION.
sounds a bit kooky perhaps but this is what I think about esp when i meditate. i dont think the mind follows if reincarnation is the go....ie,,,,if i die and reincarnate i dont think ill wind up in another body with the same "idea of me and who i am" in that person so I feel that means that when the Romanovs were murdered, a part of them at least was gone forever but not all of them.....so if this was the case and parts of my "self" were once a romanov maybe the impressions, experiences and effects of those times would come up for me as an attraction to Russian history, to taking photos, to flying planes etc, maybe now, but who can really ever master the knowledge of all that is God? Fun to think about I think.