Tzar DNA identifiedIn 1993, British and Russian scientists using DNA genetic fingerprinting tests, identified the bone fragments discovered in Ekaterinburg in 1979 to be those of the Russian Tzar Nicholas II and members of his family executed on 17 July 1918. This was work done by Drs. Peter Gill and Kevin Sullivan of the British Forensic Science Service in Birmingham. However, a slight ambiguity remained for the identification of the Tzar until a heteroplasmy was confirmed. Additional mitochondrial DNA (MtDNA) testing was carried in 1995 out by the US Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory (AFDIL) who identified the Tzar using sequence analysis and comparison of the profiles with remains of Georgij Romanov, the Tzar's younger brother, exhumed in 1994. They shared the same rare genetic partial mutation called heteroplasmy. Together with with other physical and circumstantial data, this provided indisputable evidence for identification of the Tzar. |
