Anna Anderson Research Papers

Imagine being being a young child on Halloween who is deciding on a costume, “I’m going to be a witch today.” This is an acceptable change of identity that most can identify with. Now, imagine stealing someone’s identity as an adult and using it until death. The new identity is used so much that the real person that everyone knew disappears along with all of their history. Anna Anderson, born on December 18, 1886, attempted to jump off a bridge in Berlin, Germany in the year of 1920. After being caught and rescued, her rescuers took her to a mental asylum where she lived for a long time. It wasn’t until 1922 when she first told her nurse something about herself. In 1922, Anna Anderson told her nurse that she was the real Grand Duchess

In 1927, Alexandra’s brother, Ernest Louis, funded a private investigation that identified Anna Anderson as Franziska Schanzkowska, a Polish factory worker who had a history of mental illnesses. Anastasia was murdered along with her parents and siblings on July 17, 1918 but, her body wasn’t located until the year of 2007. During the investigation, Anderson lived in and out of mental asylums. The investigation didn’t really prove much at the time, the court basically said that if she was unable to prove that she was Anastasia than they would forget about her and her statement. Once the investigation was over, Anderson married a man by the name of Jack and moved to the state of Virginia in the USA. During her death in 1984, Anderson's body was cremated and her ashes were buried in the churchyard at Castle Seeon in Germany. After the communism collapse in Russia, the location of the bodies of Nicholas II, his wife, and their children were revealed and multiple DNA tests were performed. Anderson’s DNA did not match the Romanov DNA however, matched the DNA of Karl Maucher, the great- nephew of Franziska Schanzkowska. It was determined that there was no relation between the Grand Tsar and

So many years went by and after leaving the asylums, Anderson moved to Virginia with her American husband and died from pneumonia. Even after the day Anna Anderson died, her DNA was tested again.

“she died of pneumonia in 1984. Her body was cremated, but advances in DNA testing meant her death was not the end of the saga. In 1991, the remains of eight people were found in Siberia. Forensic testing suggests the corpses of Nicholas, Alexandra and three of their children were among the bodies. British scientists compared their DNA with samples of Anderson’s hair, and found no match. However, Anderson did seem to have extremely similar DNA results to blood samples taken from the grand-nephew of Franziska Schanzkowska”(Mystery Files; Anastasia/Anna Anderson).

The moment pneumonia took over the body, Anderson’s DNA was tested and even with the advancements in DNA testing technology, was found to have no relation with the Tsar and Tsarina. It really shows how important it was to solve this case, so much time and effort was put into this situation hoping the claims were true. Since no one knew who this woman really was, they took other DNA samples with random people and found a match, her DNA matched the DNA of Franziska Schanzkowska and that is what she was called. Another long lasting effect is that Anderson’s case was ended and not brought back until the year of 1991 when the dead bodies of Tsar and Tsarina’s family were found except two. One