Romanov Family Internet Research
Name ___________________________
Directions: Type the following website into your internet browser: www.dnai.org/d/index.html.
Part 1: At the bottom of the page, click on "Human Identification" and complete the Profiling module.
DNA Variation and Fingerprints:
1. What is a polymorphism?
2. What is the difference in a VNTR and a STR?
Part 2: At the bottom of the page, click on the “Recovering the Romanovs” module. Read through
each of the three sections and answer the following questions.
The Romanov Family
1. What is hemophilia?
2. How is it possible that a family with the same genotypes as the Romanov’s have no children with
hemophilia? (use the key at the bottom if needed to help you interpret the pedigree)
3. When did Csar Nicholas abdicate his throne and why?
4. How were the Romanovs executed?
The Mystery of Anna Anderson
5. What happened to Anna Anderson in February 1920 and who does she claim to really be?
6. Name all of the characteristics that Anna Anderson had in common with the princess Anastasia.
7. The German court, along with a private investigator, claimed what about Anna Anderson’s true
background?
8. What happened to the woman named “Anna Anderson”?
Science Solves a Mystery]
9. What was the location of the burial site that scientists believed could hold the remains of the royal
family?
10. Name three ways that skeletal remains can be analyzed.
11. How many skeletons were found in the remains of the grave? What two people were thought to be
missing?
12. How is mitochondrial DNA different from nuclear DNA?
13. How was DNA science used to prove the identity of skeletal remains from the Yekaterinburg?
14. What did the comparison of mitochondrial DNA sequences show about Anna Anderson?
15. Do you think Anna Anderson is Anastasia? Support your answer with the evidence.