What is the best way to resolve the Tammet claim?

[Bev]

It would be too embarrassing to ask anyone to consider testing the dna of this man.  The story is so ludicrous, so meritless, that it calls into question the intelligence of anyone who is credulous enough to believe it.

[Romanov_fan]

one word: exactly!

[lexi4]

I don't understand why those who know the answer will not release the information. That sounds like a cover up to me. The information they have could lay this to rest so why not release it? There has to be a reason they won't.

[Bev]

I doubt that anyone "has the answer" and is withholding information.  This kind of dna extraction is expensive and no one would proceed with this kind of testing based solely on some outlandish and incredulous tale.  Just because some lab received the samples, it doesn't mean that they tested them and until they receive some major bucks to pay for the testing, they won't.

[Forum Admin]

Actually, Bev,

This DNA testing now costs $1,000 for a test that can be introduced in Court. $500 if you just want the answer without the strict handling protocols.

[J_Kendrick]

More importantly, it says who they are NOT related to, with a certainty of 100%. That is the power of the tool. To ignore that, is just plain ignorant.  So, if your mtDNA does not match the Queen Victoria maternal lineage, you are NOT a child of Alix of Hesse. End of discussion.

Well, actually... Rob...

While your words do reflect the popular view, your stated view above does, in fact, have a couple of flaws.

First..

With nuclear DNA there can be only two possibilities. Either there is a match or there is not a match.  The same is not true of Mitochondrial DNA. In Mitochondrial DNA comparison, there is also a third possible outcome that can leave you with no answers at all.

If a single nucleotide is out of place in a nuclear DNA (STR) comparison, that would be considered a negative result.  A nucleotide out of place in Mitochondrial DNA, however, may not be considered to be negative.  A nucleotide out of place in Mitochondrial DNA is, instead, considered to be inconclusive and worthy of more testing before any conclusions can be drawn.

A number of things can cause this to happen in mtDNA testing -- for reasons which have no bearing on the identity of the person being tested.  Foremost are the possibilities of recombination and heteroplasmy, which can easily skew the results, without having anything to do with the actual identity of the subject. 

From: The Journal of Law and Policy, "Nuclear and Mitochondrial DNA in the Courtroom" by Julian Adams, Ph.D., Biology, Mar. 14, 2005:

"Mitochondrial DNA analysis is fundamentally different from nuclear DNA forensic analysis.  In nuclear DNA analysis, a comparison of the two samples can lead to one of two conclusions: either there is a match, resulting in inclusion, or there is no match. In mitochondrial DNA analysis, the lack of conclusive evidence for a match is a third possible option."

"While population sample sizes will increase, resulting in a proportional decrease in the frequencies of mitochondrial DNA profiles, they will never approach those of nuclear DNA.... Recently there have been reports of a paternal contribution of mitochondrial DNA, so-called "paternal leakage", and the formation of new chimaeral (recombinant) genomes incorporating both maternal and paternal sequences.  It is imperative that the nature and extent of these phenomena be confirmed and investigated.  In the absence of further information, it is inevitable that these reports will stimulate new challenges to the admissibility of mitochondrial DNA evidence."

As it has been said here numerous times before... Mitochondrial DNA is only an indicator.  It is not proof.

The second and more serious problem with your statement is this:

It is entirely possible for someone who is not a Romanov to make a successful claim because it is entirely possible to have the same mitochondrial DNA profile as Alexandra and her great nephew Prince Philip... without actually being related to anyone in Victoria's matrilineal line.

The perfect example of this possibility is the Oxford DNA professor Dr. Brian Sykes, who has the same mitochondrial DNA profile as Nicholas II, but without the heteroplasmy at position 16169.  Dr. Sykes has the same mitochondrial profile as the Tsar's nephew Tikhon Kulikovsy (who does not have the heteroplasmy), even though Dr. Sykes very clearly is not a Romanov.

In his recent book about mitochondrial DNA titled "The Seven Daughters of Eve", Professor Sykes has explained that his own Scottish-born mother could have claimed to be a Romanov and no one would ever be able to prove her wrong because her mtDNA is a match with the maternal line of which Nicholas is a member.. even though she is clearly not related.

All it would take is a common maternal ancestor at the top of two very different family lines... an ancestor who could have lived as many as a hundred generations or more in the past.

So, just imagine...

You continue to insist that mtDNA will prove if someone is not a Romanov... and then... along comes another "Anastasia" who actually does have a proven mitochondrial DNA match with Alexandra.. but is clearly not related to the last empress.

If you cannot prove that the next fake "Anastasia" to come along was not a Romanov because she does have a mitochondrial match with Alexandra... only by the mere happenstance of having a common maternal ancestor who had lived a hundred or more generations ago...

Then what? 

How would you ever manage to wriggle your way out of that one?

jk

[Forum Admin]

But they haven't ...

I'll stick to the real world Kendrick. You can stay with your dancing on the head of a pin to prove your spurious conclusion...

Why if I weren't in this wheelchair Jane....
Ya ARE in the wheelchair Blanche...but ya ARE in that chair.

[Romanov_fan]

I don't think there is much truth in this claim..not that I have bothered to read too much of the claim. It is funny though..

[Bev]

I know, Rob, but if he wants nuclear dna extracted from samples, which it seems is the only acceptable proof to this person, then he will have to spend around 10-20k.  I agree that any Genealogical mtDNA service will give him an answer in short order.  A few weeks, a few bucks, and he can eliminate his claimant.  (Which of course, any sentient person would already have done, having heard the story.)

He's wrong about mtDNA, it is used in court all the time as proof.  Strictly speaking, ALL dna is exclusionary in nature, even nuclear dna.  This notion that you'll ever get any kind of "matching" dna is false, because every single person (with the exception of identical twins) has his own dna sequence.  People can share similar or like haloptype groups, they can have similar mtdna, but no one has the "same" dna.  When scientists say 1 in 300 - ?00 could share the same mtdna, isn't because they actually do share it, it's because the data base is so small in comparison to  the nuclear dna data base.  I sometimes wonder if people actually read Sykes's book.  Yes, his mother can claim descendency from an ancestor in common with the Romanovs, but then, so can just about everyone in Europe.

[J_Kendrick]

  I sometimes wonder if people actually read Sykes's book.  Yes, his mother can claim descendency from an ancestor in common with the Romanovs, but then, so can just about everyone in Europe.

That's precisely the point...

As you have said:
"Yes, his mother can claim descendency from an ancestor in common with the Romanovs, but then, so can just about everyone in Europe."

And Syke's mother's mtDNA will match with Nicholas II's... just as it is entirely possible for a claimed survivor to match with Alexandra's mtDNA for the same reason... even if that claimant is NOT a Romanov.

[J_Kendrick]

I doubt that anyone "has the answer" and is withholding information.  This kind of dna extraction is expensive and no one would proceed with this kind of testing based solely on some outlandish and incredulous tale.  Just because some lab received the samples, it doesn't mean that they tested them and until they receive some major bucks to pay for the testing, they won't.

Your words now offer the perfect opening to tell you a little story...

Once upon a time there was a Romanov claimant in Scottsdale, Arizona who had married five times and operated a perfume and jewellery story.  Before his death in 1986, he  was an avid polo player who sold vodka using the brand name of Alexis and claimed to have taught Ronald Reagan how to ride horses.   This particular Alexei claimant's last wife and widow had a couple of good friends named Wink and Richard who operated a small private public relations firm out of an office near the Scottsdale airport.

With DNA samples from the Scottsdale claimant safely packed in their carry-on luggage, Wink and Richard boarded a plane to England to help their old friend find an answer.  In November of 1992, they stood directly across the desk from Dr. Peter Gill in his office at the Forensic Science Service lab in Aldermaston, England and handed him the Scottsdale claimant's samples in person.

That first meeting led to an arrangement between both Dr. Peter Gill and Dr. Pavel Ivanov and Wink's and Richard's private family PR company named "Wink Inc." to collect and test samples from a small number of other carefully "selected pretenders", as well as the Scottsdale claimant.   The plan was to test all of those same collected claimant samples together as a group, directly alongside and in parallel with the testing being done on the yet to be completed mitochondrial DNA identification of the Ekaterinburg remains.  The entire testing procedure with those same claimants' samples was then to be recorded on film and the "Wink Inc." PR agency was to use the money made from the book and film rights to pay for that same DNA testing at no expense to the claimants' families.

The teeth samples supplied by the widow in the Tammet case were included among those same sets of samples collected from "other selected pretenders" that were to be tested in this arrangement between Drs. Gill and Ivanov and the Scottsdale, Arizona PR company named "Wink Inc.".   In broken English, Dr. Ivanov had written to Mrs. Sandra Romanov (.. and yes.. that is the name that Dr. Ivanov used when he addressed his letter). In the letter signed by his own hand, Dr. Ivanov wrote: ".. that time we started tests on one of the two teeth submitted by you... My knowledge is that the above mentioned (mtDNA) extract has being kept in a freezer in the Aldermaston laboratory at the moment I left for Moscow on 16 July 1993.".  In the only published statement ever made about the Scottsdale PR company's arrangement with Drs. Gill and Ivanov to test these claimants together as a group, Wink Inc. vice-president Richard Sutz had said that there were to be five Alexeis and three Anastasias included in those tests.

Then... at roughly the same time that the courts in Charlottesville, Virginia began hearing petitions to gain access to the Ann Anderson samples at Marshall Jefferson Hospital in late 1993... discussions about the "Wink Inc." plan to test selected claimants together as a group at no expense to those same claimants' families then suddenly went silent...

Continued in the following post...

[J_Kendrick]

Continued from previous post...

And so, you may ask... How can you confirm that these facts I have just told you are true?

Find a copy of Dr. Peter Gill's original mitochondrial DNA report in the February 1994, Volume Six edition of the science journal 'Nature Genetics".  Turn to the last page of Dr. Gill's report -- page 135 of the journal.  Look down to the sixth line of the "Acknowledgements" on the right side of the page and you will find the name of that very same family owned Scottsdale, Arizona PR company "Wink Inc." written in small print in italics... right there in print at the end of Dr. Gill's now famous mtDNA report on the Ekaterinburg remains.

There is no clear reason at all for the "Wink Inc." company name to be present in the text that same Nature Genetics report. "Wink Inc." had played absolutely no part in the actual mtDNA investigation of the Ekaterinburg remains.  What is more, Dr. Peter Gill has never explained his reasons for including the name of that same"Wink Inc." PR firm in the text of his report.

Wink Inc.'s only role in its association with Drs. Peter Gill and Pavel Ivanov was in its part as a representative of the Scottsdale, Arizona Alexei claimant and as the organizer of that same earlier mentioned arrangement to test a collection of "selected pretenders" together as a group... at no expense to the claimants' families.  In the only published report about this same arrangement, 'WORTH Online' magazine had described Wink Inc. in early 1994 as a "self-styled clearing house for purported Romanov claimants".

The very presence of the "Wink Inc." company name in the text of that now famous February 1994 Nature Genetics report by Drs. Gill and Ivanov is the proof of their involvement in a plan to test a small number of "selected pretenders" together as a group... at no cost to the claimants' families.  That very same arrangement had been made more than eighteen full months before the same Dr. Gill was to fly to the US in June of 1994 to collect those now famous Anna Anderson tissue samples from Martha Jefferson Hospital in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Tammet was just one of those very same claimants' cases from which Drs. Gill and Ivanov had actually collected DNA samples in early 1993... for testing as a part of that same earlier described "Wink Inc." plan to use the book and film rights to pay for those same tests... and at no cost to the claimants' families.

.. and now you have even more reason to go ask Pavel Ivanov for confirmation!

jk

[Bev]

Well, Mr. Kendrick, without a look at your contractual agreement with the Aldermaston Lab I would have no way of knowing if you have a legitimate claim or not.  You argue that the lab was under some obligation to test these samples, but then you also said that the tests were to be paid for by selling the movie and book rights and if you haven't sold those rights, then why would the lab front the money to pay for the tests?  With five claimants, you're easily talking 100K, if not more, without any guarantees that dna could be extracted from the samples.  While you claim that there was "no cost" to the claimants' families, the cost certainly was to be paid by "Wink Inc." by your own admission.  Also, having a dna extract (if that is what he was describing, and not the sample) doesn't mean that they were tested, it just means there is some sort of extract - it might be contaminated or simply not a large enough sample to proceed.  A very simple solution is to ask for the sample back and take it to another lab. 

If I was the one asking questions, I'd want to know exactly what Wink has done to promote the sale of the film and book rights, but quite frankly, after a look at the company's website I wouldn't expect much. 

[J_Kendrick]

If I was the one asking questions, I'd want to know exactly what Wink has done to promote the sale of the film and book rights, but quite frankly, after a look at the company's website I wouldn't expect much. 

It's Peter Gill and Pavel Ivanov who need to do the explaining.  They're the ones who put the "Wink Inc." company name on their Nature Genetics DNA report about the Ekaterinburg remains... a privately owned American family company that had nothing to do with the actual identification of those same Ekaterinburg remains that are the subject of that report... a privately owned American family company that had everything to do with the DNA testing and identification of a handful of claimants that those who post to this board have obviously never heard of before.

[J_Kendrick]

P.S.  The particular "Wink Inc." you're looking for is a small family owned company in Scottsdale, Arizona that does not have a web site.