Anna Anderson - Physical Evidence and DNA

[Annie]

 I think its conclusion was that her English had a degree -- how vague or how pronounced I have no idea -- of Yorkshire in it, which was interesting because Yorkshire was the boyhood home of Sidney Gibbes, the Imperial Children's English tutor.  Gibbes had acquired a more "acceptable" Oxbridge-ish veneer in his adult speech -- but it's an interesting little aside to the language issue, I think.

The English the children spoke would not have been as much Gibbes' influence as their mother and the first British nanny, from whom they learned it first.

rsskiya wrote:

no doubt an accent may be misunderstood by someone unfamiliar with the language

That's part of what I think is behind most of the language comments, and why I don't put much stock in any of them.

[Penny_Wilson]

The English the children spoke would not have been as much Gibbes' influence as their mother and the first British nanny, from whom they learned it first.

Or perhaps the influence was strongest from Gibbes, from whom they learned it last.  We just have no way of knowing which would have been the case -- some people are linguistically influenced early, and others later.  For example, a friend of mine, of Mexican origin, grew up speaking the Spanish he heard in his house; he has since married a Puerto Rican woman, and he says his Spanish has changed quite a bit...

[Annie]

But your friend was probably around the wife more than the family. The kids were always around and talking to and still being influenced by Alexandra, I'm sure more than a teacher.

[helenazar]

Well, either way, obviously AA did not pick up her accent, whatever it was, from Sidney Gibbes since she was not even acquainted with the guy!

[Annie]

Well, either way, obviously AA did not pick up her accent, whatever it was, from Sidney Gibbes since she was not even acquainted with the guy!

Very true, she wasn't Anastasia so she didn't have him for an English teacher!

[AGRBear]

So, the photographs are not conclusive.

What sources are there about the scars AA had?  And, yes, the story about the scar on GD Anastasia's finger has been repeated enough times and that the story belonged to another sister.... [Remember, we are not comparing AA with Anastasia].  Penny has told us that FS didn't have any scars which her family remembers, also, she received no scars from the explosion in the factory accident.

AGRBear

[Annie]

Yeah, but would someone buy shoes that were three sizes too large?  

Maybe, if she were a poor working girl on her own and that was all that was available, or that they were given to her and she made use of them.

But I am not convinced the shoes were even hers. We hear so much about switching the intestines, shoes are a whole lot easier to switch! Was there any proof they belonged to her other than the word of one person? We have no pics or anything else. And remember, the glove didn't fit OJ either  

[AGRBear]

...[in part]...

Ian Lilburn told me that during the trial, there was evidence entered concerning Franziska's dress and shoe sizes -- I forget from whom this came, though I have an idea it originated from the Wingenders who surrendered the clothing that FS left behind at their residence when she disappeared.  In both cases, the sizes were quite a bit bigger than the sizes Fraulein U wore --  a little enough matter in the case of dress sizes where weight can be gained or lost relatively easily, but shoe sizes are another thing.  One clue that I cannot shake is that Fraulein U wore shoes three sizes smaller than FS's shoes.  Feet can spread out in width with age and various ailments -- like the bunions -- but can they shrink three sizes in the space of a couple of weeks?
...  

Shoe size:

FS wore shoes that were three sizes larger than AA

AA wore shoes that were three sizes smaller than FS

This was recorded in the trial, according to Penny.  Therefore, this can stand as evidence showing the difference between AA and FS.

AGRBear

[AGRBear]

If AA wasn't GD Anastasia, where would she have picked up the Yorkshire accent?  

AGRBear

[Penny_Wilson]

If AA wasn't GD Anastasia, where would she have picked up the Yorkshire accent?  

AGRBear

Or -- more to the point -- if AA was FS, where would she have picked up the Yorkshire?

The only thing I can think of -- purely, purely speculative, of course -- is that FS DID travel to the UK, as Bruno Grandsitzki claimed she told him, and that during that time, she worked for a Northern family, or for a family with Northern servants, and picked up her English from there.

Seeking corroboration for this speculation would require searching passenger manifests from Germany/Poland to Britain and then back again in 1920.  Dominique Aucleres did search some of the manifests, for the ships with the name FS allegedly gave Grandsitzki, but found no record of her.  The search would obviously have to be expanded to include all shipping lines and their manifests -- if these things exist after all these years.

However, her departure for a new job in England begs the question of her disappearance from Berlin -- she left without telling the Wingenders?  -- without taking her clothes and other possessions with her? -- and would a girl with her mental-health background be welcomed by an employment agency?

[Annie]

There is still no proof the clothes and shoes actually belonged to FS other than that person's word. I don't know why you rule out the clothing being switched if you believe it could have happened to the intestines. Also they could have been mistaken. I don't consider that hard evidence at all unless you can show me a pic of one of the dresses on her body. That's the problem with this case and why it will never end, everything is questionable! :-/

[helenazar]

The only thing we know for sure is that the shoes FS owned were size 39 - we don't know for sure what size her feet really were. This is assuming that the shoes presented by Ms Wingender indeed belonged to FS - Ms Wingender did not prove all that honest and she may have been paid off to come up with FS's clothing items, just like she was paid off for her testimony.

So, IMO, we can't really use the shoes as conclusive evidence, just like we can't use the photos.

[helenazar]

Besides, I don't think FS would have picked up the accent in only six months, before she returned to Berlin, jumped off the bridge, got admitted to a mental hospital and decided that she was a grand duchess.

I have to add also that to me, AA's English sounded so broken, I can't fathom how anyone could say that she had any kind of a British accent, Yorkshire or not! I am not an expert on British accents, but come on...  

[AGRBear]

I. Photographs:
Photographs won't make everyone happy as to their looking alike.

II.  Shoe sizes
FS wore shoes that were three sizes larger than AA
 AA wore shoes that were three sizes smaller than FS

Shoes sizes still doesn't accomplish any agreement even though at the trial  there  shown that there was three size difference.

III. Pregnancy
AA- Evidence of a pregnancy but no proof of when.  Claimed to have had a son.
FS- No pregnancy known.

IV. Scars.
FS -  no unusual scars remembered by family; no scars inflicted in factory accident
AA - scars which were claimed to have been inflicted by a bayonet;  small scar on finger claimed to have been from a door; scar from removal of a mole.....

IIV. Height
FS is reported to have been 5'6", which is about 4 inches taller than AA - Helen was th source on this fact.
AA was about 5'2"" tall

AGRBear

[Elisabeth]

Another discrepancy has occurred to me from reading this thread and other, related ones:

AA by all reports preferred to speak German but nevertheless spoke pretty bad, broken German - i.e., German was obviously not her native language.

Whereas FS, according to Penny Wilson in another thread ("Reasons other than DNA"), was closer to her German heritage than her Polish one and would presumably have had relatively good German.