One thing I find odd

[Belochka]

Look at Belochka's signature. There are people actively looking right now, and hopefully they can be successful so that this ridiculous nonsense can finally be put to bed, though I'm sure there will still be those who claim tampering, conspiracy, etc.

Finding her body would help. Although I'm not sure anyone is actively looking right now. It seems it all got put to bed once the DNA tests were in.

Thank you Annie for recognizing that the search for the remains continues to this day. 

Lexi4, may I assure you that the SEARCH Foundation, of which I am a member, is active and will continue to travel to Ekaterinburg until the task is completed. One must appreciate that it is an expensive exercise, involving many people handling specialized equipment, and considerable patience.

For more details about the SEARCH Foundation, please click on my SEARCH logo. Hopefully your concerns will be alleviated. Thank you for your interest.

Regards,

Margarita

[lexi4]

Finding her body would help. Although I'm not sure anyone is actively looking right now. It seems it all got put to bed once the DNA tests were in.

Look at Belochka's signature. There are people actively looking right now, and hopefully they can be successful so that this ridiculous nonsense can finally be put to bed, though I'm sure there will still be those who claim tampering, conspiracy, etc.

I have had a thought...Let's just say that AN did escape to Germany. Do you think it possiblle that she met FS and that is how FS knew so much? Maybe the real AN died. Annie, don't yell at me  Smiley I've wanted to ask this for a long time.

I don't want to yell, but that is a stretch. And I must say again, she didn't know that much, and what she did say was often wrong. With the amount of Russian emigres in Berlin in those days, there were literally hundreds who could have given her the info, intentionally or incidentally. And of course you know I am certain some of her suppporters were her main source of 'memories.'

Like I said before, the 'how did she pull it off' story would be so interesting to explore, IF we can EVER get past the old, tired notion that she was still somehow AN. I feel like digging out my headbanger smilie.

Thank you Annie 

Yes, that is the story. And it would be interesting. Maybe someday, it will be told.

[lexi4]

Look at Belochka's signature. There are people actively looking right now, and hopefully they can be successful so that this ridiculous nonsense can finally be put to bed, though I'm sure there will still be those who claim tampering, conspiracy, etc.

Finding her body would help. Although I'm not sure anyone is actively looking right now. It seems it all got put to bed once the DNA tests were in.

Thank you Annie for recognizing that the search for the remains continues to this day. 

Lexi4, may I assure you that the SEARCH Foundation, of which I am a member, is active and will continue to travel to Ekaterinburg until the task is completed. One must appreciate that it is an expensive exercise, involving many people handling specialized equipment, and considerable patience.

For more details about the SEARCH Foundation, please click on my SEARCH logo. Hopefully your concerns will be alleviated. Thank you for your interest.

Regards,

Margarita

Margarita,
I have just started browsing the site. Thank you for  calling my attention to it. Does the Foundation believe the missing daughter to be Marie?

[J_Kendrick]

Lexi4, may I assure you that the SEARCH Foundation, of which I am a member, is active and will continue to travel to Ekaterinburg until the task is completed. One must appreciate that it is an expensive exercise, involving many people handling specialized equipment, and considerable patience.

Regards,

Margarita

... and tell us, please do, how many more years must pass...
... and how many more failed attempts will it take...
... before the members of SEARCH finally admit defeat?

[Belochka]

Lexi4, may I assure you that the SEARCH Foundation, of which I am a member, is active and will continue to travel to Ekaterinburg until the task is completed. One must appreciate that it is an expensive exercise, involving many people handling specialized equipment, and considerable patience.

Regards,

Margarita

... and tell us, please do, how many more years must pass...
... and how many more failed attempts will it take...
... before the members of SEARCH finally admit defeat?

Ah John, I wondered how long it would take before our cyber paths would cross!

Kind regards,

Margarita 

[Belochka]

Look at Belochka's signature. There are people actively looking right now, and hopefully they can be successful so that this ridiculous nonsense can finally be put to bed, though I'm sure there will still be those who claim tampering, conspiracy, etc.

Finding her body would help. Although I'm not sure anyone is actively looking right now. It seems it all got put to bed once the DNA tests were in.

Thank you Annie for recognizing that the search for the remains continues to this day. 

Lexi4, may I assure you that the SEARCH Foundation, of which I am a member, is active and will continue to travel to Ekaterinburg until the task is completed. One must appreciate that it is an expensive exercise, involving many people handling specialized equipment, and considerable patience.

For more details about the SEARCH Foundation, please click on my SEARCH logo. Hopefully your concerns will be alleviated. Thank you for your interest.

Regards,

Margarita

Margarita,
I have just started browsing the site. Thank you for  calling my attention to it. Does the Foundation believe the missing daughter to be Marie?

Hello Lexi4,

Thank you for taking the time to browse through the SEARCH website.

To respond to you query, there are those who prefer to discredit the professionalism of Russian forensic scientists, simply because they prefer to perpetuate the myth of AA. The answer that you shall prefer to accept, depends upon your personal bias regarding this matter.

Regards,

Margarita

[lori_c]

Anastasia's basic features would not have changed in three years even in the most horrible of circumstances.  She still would have exhibited Romanov-Hessian features.

Lori

Some AA supporters have suggested her injuries would have changed her face, but to this I say it would have looked like a messed up version of AN's face, not change to the face of a completely different person!

One (of many reasons) that I feel her features would still basically be unchanged as Anastasia is the photo with all the children standing together with their heads shaved after they were ill.  Even though as fans of the story and love of the Romanovs, WE know which is which,  you can see the Hessian-Romanov gene runs strongly through these children.  Age would not have altered this.  An example would be the strong features of Princess Alice passed down to HER daughters.  Age and time didn't alter our ability to identify for example Ella from teenager to young adult nor her resemblance to her siblings.  I feel the same would be true for her neices. AA exhibited characteristics not found in the children.  Without their hair, their aquiline noses, shape of the eyes and thin lips directly contradict the looks of AA.  Especially Anastasia and Alexei who very much resemble their mother.

[J_Kendrick]

Lexi4, may I assure you that the SEARCH Foundation, of which I am a member, is active and will continue to travel to Ekaterinburg until the task is completed. One must appreciate that it is an expensive exercise, involving many people handling specialized equipment, and considerable patience.

Regards,

Margarita

... and tell us, please do, how many more years must pass...
... and how many more failed attempts will it take...
... before the members of SEARCH finally admit defeat?

Ah John, I wondered how long it would take before our cyber paths would cross!

Kind regards,

Margarita 

Your comment fails to answer a perfectly valid question.

...and so I will ask that same question again...

How many more years must pass, and how many more failed attempts will it take, before the contributors who have financed the project lose their patience and SEARCH finally gives in and admits defeat?
 

[Romanov_fan]

Yes, Anastasia looks were not going to change that much. Anna Anderson thought she had a good excuse, but she did not. Olga A would obviously have recognized her as Anastasia had she been, because she knew her well, both physically and mentally. Why did people believe in Anna Anderson? I have found, that one of the easiest answers to that question is that I think she sincerely believed she was Anastasia.. As well, undoubtedly there were other reasons that people believed in her. They had their own motivations and beliefs that may be hard to understand. Even today, people still believe she was Anastasia.. and that's their opinion. But, you must ask yourself why?

[lori_c]

Yes, Anastasia looks were not going to change that much. Anna Anderson thought she had a good excuse, but she did not. Olga A would obviously have recognized her as Anastasia had she been, because she knew her well, both physically and mentally. Why did people believe in Anna Anderson? I have found, that one of the easiest answers to that question is that I think she sincerely believed she was Anastasia.. As well, undoubtedly there were other reasons that people believed in her. They had their own motivations and beliefs that may be hard to understand. Even today, people still believe she was Anastasia.. and that's their opinion. But, you must ask yourself why?

I too believe AA was convinced she WAS Anastasia.  Whether supported by others who fed her information etc etc, AA had a history of serious mental illness.  Add to that the grenade explosion in which she witness a supervisor's horrible death.  This certainly would have had a devastating effect on an already unstable mind.  I have also read accounts which describe FS and the "cleverest of the four children" meaning her own siblings. She was often seen with a book in her hand and was quite an actress by all accounts.  I believe she slipped into this fantasy world where she BECAME Anastasia and from that time until the day she died, in HER MIND there was no doubt.

Furthermore,  as I mentioned before it would have only been human nature for those after the tragedy that were close enough to the GD to WANT TO BELIEVE she had survived - that somebody had survived that atrocity.  Others of course were motivated by greed.

As to your comment that even today people believe she was GD Anastasia, i feel it is the same know as it was then.  We so much wanted it to be so, therefore it MUST be so.....

Lori

[Romanov_fan]

Yes, there is no doubt in my mind that Anna Anderson believed in who she was, or as the truth was, was not. All the evidence points to the fact it wasn't just a scam for her. She believed in herself, and in her claim. Thus, she seemed more convincing, and people believed her more than they might have had she had doubts in her mind. It was easy to believe someone survived if you wanted, and it was also easy to be greedy. But if I was someone who had known Anastasia, as she was, the real one, and then saw Anna Anderson, I would prefer to believe that Anastasia was dead, and in peace. It would have just seemed more fitting and appropriate, rather than thinking of all she had had to deal with if she really was AA, and her current state.

[lexi4]

Look at Belochka's signature. There are people actively looking right now, and hopefully they can be successful so that this ridiculous nonsense can finally be put to bed, though I'm sure there will still be those who claim tampering, conspiracy, etc.

Finding her body would help. Although I'm not sure anyone is actively looking right now. It seems it all got put to bed once the DNA tests were in.

Thank you Annie for recognizing that the search for the remains continues to this day. 

Lexi4, may I assure you that the SEARCH Foundation, of which I am a member, is active and will continue to travel to Ekaterinburg until the task is completed. One must appreciate that it is an expensive exercise, involving many people handling specialized equipment, and considerable patience.

For more details about the SEARCH Foundation, please click on my SEARCH logo. Hopefully your concerns will be alleviated. Thank you for your interest.

Regards,

Margarita

Margarita,
I have just started browsing the site. Thank you for  calling my attention to it. Does the Foundation believe the missing daughter to be Marie?

Hello Lexi4,

Thank you for taking the time to browse through the SEARCH website.

To respond to you query, there are those who prefer to discredit the professionalism of Russian forensic scientists, simply because they prefer to perpetuate the myth of AA. The answer that you shall prefer to accept, depends upon your personal bias regarding this matter.

Regards,

Margarita

So then if we accept the results of the Russian forensic scientists, are we not discrediting the work of the Americans/Brittish? It seems to me, either way a group of scientists get descredited. What if you have no personal bias and are just looking for the facts?

[Belochka]

So then if we accept the results of the Russian forensic scientists, are we not discrediting the work of the Americans/Brittish? It seems to me, either way a group of scientists get descredited. What if you have no personal bias and are just looking for the facts?

Not at all Lexi4. Remember that the Russian scientists collaborated with international scientists:

1. Professors Gill and Ivanov at the U. K. Forensic Science Service Laboratories.
2. Professor Ivanov and Dr Parsons at the U. S. Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory.
3. Dr Hagelberg in Norway. 

etc.

There were extensive forensic investigations conducted upto January 1998. All the results were published in peer-reviewed international journals.

The facts do indeed speak for themselves.

Margarita

[lori_c]

Yes, there is no doubt in my mind that Anna Anderson believed in who she was, or as the truth was, was not. All the evidence points to the fact it wasn't just a scam for her. She believed in herself, and in her claim. Thus, she seemed more convincing, and people believed her more than they might have had she had doubts in her mind. It was easy to believe someone survived if you wanted, and it was also easy to be greedy. But if I was someone who had known Anastasia, as she was, the real one, and then saw Anna Anderson, I would prefer to believe that Anastasia was dead, and in peace. It would have just seemed more fitting and appropriate, rather than thinking of all she had had to deal with if she really was AA, and her current state.

I agree.  After all they had suffered together as a family,  i feel they died and are in heaven as a family. That was one blessing in all that ugliness was that they did not have to be separated. No matter where their bodies are now.

[lexi4]

So then if we accept the results of the Russian forensic scientists, are we not discrediting the work of the Americans/Brittish? It seems to me, either way a group of scientists get descredited. What if you have no personal bias and are just looking for the facts?

Not at all Lexi4. Remember that the Russian scientists collaborated with international scientists:

1. Professors Gill and Ivanov at the U. K. Forensic Science Service Laboratories.
2. Professor Ivanov and Dr Parsons at the U. S. Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory.
3. Dr Hagelberg in Norway. 

etc.

There were extensive forensic investigations conducted upto January 1998. All the results were published in peer-reviewed international journals.

The facts do indeed speak for themselves.

Margarita

Thank you. Now I am really confused.  I thought Gill Ivanov, Parsons all agreed it was Anastasia that was missing. I'm not sure about Hagelberg. If the missing body was at first identified as Marie, how did Anastasia ever come into play?