Cutting edge science has finally put to rest a 90-year-old mystery that involved nobility, revolution, murder and the long-romanticized story of a child's escape from the firing squad. Genomic analysis performed at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in cooperation with Institutions of Russian Academy of Science (VIGG) and Academy of Medical Sciences (MHRC) have confirmed that human remains found in the Ural Mountains in July 2007 are indeed those of the two "missing" children of Nicholas II, the last czar of Russia, whose family was murdered in 1918 during the Bolshevik Revolution.

The final evidence was presented in a paper published this week in the online Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, "Genomic identification in historical case of Nicholas II Royal family" by Evgeny I. Rogaev, PhD, professor of psychiatry at UMass Medical School's Brudnick Neuropsychiatric Research Institute and professor of genetics at the Russian Academic Institutions, and his colleagues.

Source