A spokesman for the Russian Investigative Committee says a repeated examination has confirmed that remains exhumed from the graves of Tsar Nicholas II and his family members are genuine.
Spokesman Nikolai Markin said on November 11 that DNA tests conducted on bone fragments at Russia’s Institute of General Genetics “showed that they matched the data obtained earlier in the examination of Nicholas II’s shirt carrying traces of his blood.”
Markin said the samples exhibited heteroplasmy, a rare genetic mutation present in Nicholas II samples.
Comparisons also were made from blood on the uniform of Tsar Alexander II, the grandfather of Nicholas II who was assassinated in 1881.
Seven members of the Romanov family were murdered in Yekaterinburg in the Urals region in 1918 after they were ousted from power in 1917.
Russia wants to bury all seven together, but the Russian Orthodox Church, which canonized the Romanov family in 2000, has voiced concerns over whether the remains are authentic.
