Anna Anderson - Physical Evidence and DNA

[Peter Kurth]

But on his Web site, Peter Kurth also raises a relevant objection. He said two sources indicate the great-nephew was descended from a HALF-SISTER of Franziska Schanzkowska. Franziska and the sister had different mothers. If this is true, the mitochondrial DNA would not match, unless the two mothers of the sisters were sisters or maternally related cousins themselves. Mitochondrial DNA is passed down from mother to child. I think more research is definitely indicated on the Schanzkowski family to clear up that anomaly.

I agree that more research is needed, but want it to be clear that I haven't myself made the claim that Franziska and Gertrud Schanzkowska were half-sisters.  This information comes from a note on my "Anastasia" website:  "[In their 1995 book, "The Quest for Anastasia"] Klier and Mingay also report (223) that Franziska Schanzkowska and her brother Felix had a different mother than the other Schanzkowski siblings:  `Her father married twice, and she was a child of the second marriage and close to her brother Felix.  The first family were very religious and straitlaced, while Franziska and Felix were more open-minded.'  This story was repeated on a now-defunct website, an attack on Anna Anderson snidely titled `Franziska':  `At some point in the distant past her family had been minor Polish nobility, but whatever glories and privileges that had entailed were long gone.  Her father was said to have been an alcoholic, and at any rate died when she was still young.  The child of a second marriage, Franziska and her full brother Felix were remembered as being free-spirited, less driven by religion than their half sisters.' Again, no source is given for this claim.  Neither Klier and Mingay nor `Franziska’s' anonymous author seem to notice that, if this is true, the mitochondrial DNA obtained from a descendant of Gertrude Schanzkowska would not and could not match Franziska’s, since this DNA is passed only through the female line and they did not have the same mother."

PK

[Annie]

Hello,

I am new here but I have had a long time interest in this subject.

I am not a conspiracy theorist. I am someone who gets caught up in history's mysteries.

I have been reading many of your excellent topics.

Many of you question the validity of the DNA results .

I have been around for awhile and sadly, I believe all evil has a root in big money.

Many of you question motive...why would anyone publish false DNA results?

What about all that money that was in US and Europe? In the hands of bankers who played with it for decades?In my lifetime, I have seen a slowly narrowing of wealth in banking and insurance that narrows down to a select few.

I have read the books about the money or lack there of belonging to the czar. But why would anyone in the banking industry want a definitive answer to any of our questions? It just wouldn't be good for business!

But when you get into the money issue, the theories can easily go both ways. The Anna=Anastasia camp claim it was all rigged to deny her the money, and the Anna=not Anastasia people can claim everyone on her side lied and were in secret cahoots for a share of the money if she should win. So these wild guesses can go on forever. I still want proof there actually is money, though if no evidence is found I'm sure someone will only say someone is covering it up!

[Greg_King]

But when you get into the money issue, the theories can easily go both ways. The Anna=Anastasia camp claim it was all rigged to deny her the money, and the Anna=not Anastasia people can claim everyone on her side lied and were in secret cahoots for a share of the money if she should win. So these wild guesses can go on forever. I still want proof there actually is money, though if no evidence is found I'm sure someone will only say someone is covering it up!

In this case, the money issue, any way you cut it, goes in favor of Anna Anderson.  Whether there was money there in UK banks or elsewhere is irrelevant, because that belief reflects not only what Nicholas and Alexandra themselves believed, and what Alix told Lili Dehn, but what others believed-Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna actually hired two lawyers, Sir Harold Brooks and Fanny Holtzmann, to conduct a lengthy search for her brother's UK bank deposits.  So if AA claimed there was money and there really was none, as most recent scholarship has suggested, her claim is nothing more than a reflection of what Nicholas, Alexandra, Xenia, and others in the family thought to be true.  And if there was money, again, it simply shows knowledge of this.  Failure to discover the money doesn't in this case reflect on her claim, because that claim echoed what the Romanovs themselves believed to be true.  The existence of the money is irrelevant to the issue.

Greg King

[pushkina]

i read that the reason AN had her hair cut into bangs/fringe was to hide a scar on her forehead.

does anyone know how big was this scar that had to be hidden?  does anyone know if it really was that obvious? or unsightly?

[Annie]

I guess none of us have seen this either because of the bangs;) It's interesting to note that AA must not have had a horrible scar on her forehead because she most often wore her hair swept back or combed over instead of in bangs;)

[pushkina]

does anyone know if AA had a forehead scar?

i know the scars on my face that my mother found unsightly when i was a child, i don't even notice as an adult.

[aislinn_24]

 friends, confidants of this websites' forums,
   i have my doubts to whether who  AA really is or whether GDA really survived but thinkabout do you think if AA wasnt Anastasia  she'd keep  telling everybody she was until the day she died. IF AA really was a con-artist wouldnt she give up somewhere inbetween? in my opinion i think the ones who tested the Dna rigged something. but then i ask myself why would they rigg the test ,stalin dead, all who was after the romanovs were long gone. so why lie about the DNA results. but then i think that maybe they had a mix up or something. because things like that do happen. look at Murray show.  Maybe she did survive, maybe Anna Anderson was the Grand Duchess Anastasia. remember she did have to change her name,  stalin every one who were against them wanted them dead. so she faked crazy for a while, lost, upset. of course devasted, she lost every one she loved. but then she finally confessed. but why confess, because she knew she was not crazy , or con-artist. she wanted to be with her remaining family- distant relatives you say.  well that is my opinion. that the Grand Duchess Anastasia did survive and was Anna Anderson.
                                                         Aislinn 24

[Forum Admin]

Hi,
If you go to this thread, you will read that on October 15, Science published letters from Dr. Gill and the US Armed Forces Lab setting out exactly why the DNA testing is in fact valid, and why the only "serious" challenge from Dr. Knight is in fact totally flawed and invalid.

The main and to me most important part is the sequencing of the Ekaterinburg remains by Dr. Gill was done PRIOR to approaching Prince Philip for a sample. This is critical, because it shows Gill had NO POSSIBLE way to know how to "fake" or rig the results. He got the results first. THEN the sample, which matched to a degree shown to be so improbable as to be impossible, AND it shows a familial relation between the remains as well.

http://hydrogen.pallasweb.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=family;action=display;num=1095550330;start=379#379

[AGRBear]

Gosh, gee whiz and o-my-golly,  how does one go about explaining something that goes against the stream of evidence when I haven't any evidence to the contrary.

The DNA test are probably acurate for what they had to test, the blood of Prince Philip and the intestines.

The intestines aparently are closer in DNA to the S. family than it will ever be to the royal family.

As I have mentioned on another thread,  and don't everyone bounce on me at once,  but I'm not sure the intestines tested were that of Anna Anderson's.

Yes,  I know the hospital where the intestines were kept is highly regarded.  No,  I don't think the doctors or nurses cared about making a switch or cared one way or another.

My first problem is the "transportation" between labs.  I think someone had stated that the intestines had not been properly transported and if it had then there would be no support of  doubt that someone may have tampered with the evidence in route from one lab to the other.

So,  that is doubt #1.

Doubt #2 is my own.  I don't think the hospital staff  was particularly interested in the intestines and didn't keep the sample under police survilance all the years they were there.  Tampering could have occured at any time and no one would have noticed if done by professionals,  if there was a conspiracy.

Was there a need of a conspiracy?  I suppose that was possible......  Anything more about this subject of conspiracy would need it's own thread.

With two huge doubts in my mind about the intestine samples,  I could not,  if I was sitting on a jury,  say that I could believe beyong a shadow of a doubt that the intestines tested were Anna Anderson's.

Is this being rediculously picky picky?

I'll let others answer.

Meanwhile,  I'm still on the fense.

By the way,  wasn't there anything connected to Anna Anderson in her later years from which DNA could have been tested?  Yes, I know she was cremated.  But something simple like hair folicles from a hair brush or something???

AGRBear

[Annie]

While I am completely against any 'intestine switch' theory (the samples were not even labeled with names, only codes that were available to only a very few individuals) assuming there is one billionth of a chance it's true, (which I doubt)  I must ask WHERE in the world would someone have gotten a piece of intestine from a member of the Schanskowska family, how did they cut it out of the person, then happen to be among the team of doctors and scientists transporting it to the other lab, and, finally, WHY would anyone do that, what would be the possible payoff?

[IlyaBorisovich]

If you have a problem with the chain of custody and transportation of the intestine sample, how would you ever be convinced that a hair from an old brush actually belonged to Anna Anderson?  It would raise more objections that the intestine did.

Ilya

[Forum Admin]

The only major problem with the "intestine sample" switch is this:
yes, during years perhaps the sample in the Path lab was not under Police security, BUT, someone would have HAD to have KNOWN that "someday" science would have evolved to the point where such DNA testing would be developed and presciently forseen the NEED to find a S. family member, taken the sample and then clandenstinely, in league with someone inside at the Hospital, SWITCHED the real AA sample against the long unforseen day when the long forgotten sample "MIGHT" be of use. WHY would someone switch a sample in the unknown worry that the sample MIGHT someday be needed?? Remember, forensic science had no idea about DNA sequencing until just a few years before the 1994 tests were done, and by then, the AA sample had  been forgotten...
THIS is the picky picky angels dancing on a pinhead point I don't understand about the 'conspiracy' theory...

[AGRBear]

Hey,  if I knew the answers,  I'd write myself a book  

Anyway,  what do we know?  The intestines were probably FS's or someones from S. family.   We do not know for certain the intestines were Anna Anderson's just like we would not know if we did have hair that the hair from the brush was Anna Anderson's.

AGRBear

[LisaDavidson]

Yes, AGRBear, but it would have taken a vast and highly improbable conspiracy to plant DNA in a brush found after AA's death and the pathology sample held in the hospital lab, make it likely to seem both came from Mrs, Manahan, and make them match, exactly, which they in fact, did.

[Guinastasia]

friends, confidants of this websites' forums,
    i have my doubts to whether who  AA really is or whether GDA really survived but thinkabout do you think if AA wasnt Anastasia  she'd keep  telling everybody she was until the day she died. IF AA really was a con-artist wouldnt she give up somewhere inbetween?

Or a third option-she was mentally ill and suffering from delusions of grandeur, and truly believed she WAS Anastasia.  

It wasn't that far-fetched-Franziska was working in a munitions factory during the war, when she learned that her fiance was killed at the front.  Shortly thereafter, she had an accident when she let a grenade slip at the factory-a man was killed right in front of her and she had head injuries due to shrapnel.  Afterwards, they said she suffered brain damage or whatever.  And then that Franziska started suffering mental illness.

If Anna Anderson was NOT Franziska-then what happened to the latter?  

I think that poor Anna thought she really was the Grand Duchess-everything about her behavior screamed mentall ill-she had persecution complexes, came up with huge stories about nonsense, she was paranoid, and she was an animal hoarder.  Poor woman wasn't a con artist, or the real deal, she was simply sick and needed help.  But everyone who claimed to be on her side simply was more interested in proving her claim than actually doing what was in her best interest.