P E S A K

Empress Alexandra Feodorovna of Russia, the granddaughter of Queen Victoria was born on June 6, 1872 as Princess Alix of Hess and by Rhine in Darmstadt (Germany).  She was the sixth child of Grand Duke Louis IV of Hesse and by Rhine and Princess Alice of the United Kingdom.  She was the princess consort of Nicholas II, and the last Tsaritsa of Russia. 

What were the anthropologists trying to find out? ie why was her DNA tested?

At the end of the February Revolution of 1917, Tsar Nicholas II was forced to abdicate.  The Romanov family were imprisoned in Ipatiev House at Ekaterinburg in the Urals of Central Russia in 1918 with three servants and the family doctor.  On the night of July 16, 1918, the entire Romanov family was shot and killed by the Bolshevik firing squad.