Royalty in the News

The story of one of Tsar Nicholas II’s children surviving the massacre of July 1918 has been a romantic legend for many for nearly a century. Especially since two skeletons were missing from the grave of the last Russian Tsar and his family.

But then, in 2007, it was announced another grave was found not too far from the Romanov grave site in the forests of Ekaterinburg. This grave contained two more skeletons – one of a girl in her late teens, another of a boy in his early teens.

Could these remains be that of the long lost Grand Duchess Maria and Tsarevich Alexei?

The answer is: yes, they are. And DNA reports released today have proven it.

“There is absolutely no doubt that these are the remains of the Romanov family,” said Peter Sarandinaki, founder of the Scientific Expedition to Account for the Romanov Children, which has been seeking the remains of the family.

“I think it is very compelling evidence that this family has been reunited finally,” said geneticist Terry Melton of Mitotyping Technologies in State College, Pa., an expert in forensic DNA.

The remains of Tsar Nicholas II, his wife Alexandra, their three daugthers Olga, Tatiana and Anastasia, plus four servants were buried at the Cathedral of St Paul in St Petersburg in 1998 – 80 years to the day they were all murdered by Bolsheviks.

Because two bodies were missing from the grave, stories and fantasies of the Romanov children went on. There are still people to this day saying they are or are descendants of the Romanov children.

But those stories can go on no more.

“This closes the book on this particular chapter of the Romanov history,” said forensic anthropologist Susan Myster of Hamline University in St. Paul, Minn.

“There are still people who are going to want to believe that there were survivors,” geneticist Anthony Falsetti of the University of Florida said. “And God bless them, but I am confident that the royal family has been found, they have been identified and there was no escape, no princess,”