The UNT Center for Human Identification invites everyone to attend this informative lecture presented by Dr. Michael Coble as he shares details about the work he performed to assist in the identification of the missing Romanov children.
With the collapse of the Romanov Dynasty after the Bolshevik revolution in 1917, the Russian royal family (Tsar Nicholas II, his wife Alexandra, and their five children) was exiled to the city of Ekaterinburg, Russia. In the early morning hours of July 17, 1918 the family and their four servants were murdered by their captors. The Bolsheviks buried nine of the bodies in a mass grave in a field outside of the city. The discovery of the mass grave in the 1970s and subsequent DNA testing in the 1990s confirmed the identity of the Romanovs. However, two members of the family had not been recovered: Alexei, the only son of Nicholas and Alexandra and heir to the throne, and one of his sisters.
In 2007 amateur archeologists discovered 44 skeletal fragments approximately 70 meters from the mass grave. On the 100-year anniversary of the demise of the Romanov dynasty, which forever changed the course of history, Dr. Coble will provide a historical background and the genetic marker systems used to identify the remains discovered in 2007. The use of multiple marker systems in this case provides virtually irrefutable evidence for the identity of the Ekaterinburg remains as the two missing Romanov children.
Presentation is at 10:00 AM, July 17, 2018 in CBH-220