The fate of the Imperial Daughters is one of the most puzzling features of this story. We know Alexei Nicolaievich is missing.. but deciding which of the girls is missing is much more difficult.

The girls were behind their mother before the murders began. To the shooters they were all quite beautiful young women. The murderers were told, and believed, that the girls' surname alone was enough to sentence them to death.

These innocent girls brought up on love for their parents, brother, and country had lost the only world they had ever known. They were forced to put up with with the most degrading of circumstances. Their only friends disappeared slowly. Contact with the outside world became more and more scarce. The imprisonment was too much for their sipirits.. the sparkle in their eyes was lost, their pride was shattered, their souls finally broken.

 

Being that they were born in quick succession during a period of only six years, it is sometimes hard to tell the girls apart. Having flipped through countless photos of the family it takes us only a moment to determine who's who, and have even caught mistaken identities in published books. This comes from years of experience.  Even when the children had their heads shaved in 1917 there are still distinct features that easily allows us to tell them apart; like Olga's heart-shaped face and pug nose, the bridge between Tatiana's eyes and her high cheekbones, Maria's large eyes and long face, and Anastasia's small eyes and thin nose.
~Lishka~

With Olga positively identified, having three girls to choose from when the youngest and oldest are only four years apart in age is extremely difficult. So which is the missing Grand Duchess? Statistically, we have two skeletons left and three female identities to choose from.

Therefore we have the following possibilties:

No. 5

No. 6

The Missing Sister

Maria

Tatiana

Anastasia

Tatiana

Maria

Anastasia

Tatiana

Anastasia

Maria

Anastasia

Tatiana

Maria

Maria

Anastasia

Tatiana

Anastasia

Maria

Tatiana

 

With these six possibilities we see that each of the three younger girls has an equal chance of not being among her family. The Americans and Russians have a long history of being the most stubborn rivals, but in their arguements over the identity of the missing Grand Duchess they have excluded the fact that it's just as possible for Tatiana to be missing as it is for either Maria or Anastasia.

Alexander Avdonin, the one who first discovered the location of the remains, had invited Dr. Anthony Falsetti (the late Dr. William Maples' replacement), and a man by the name of Peter Sarandinaki to Ekaterinburg in February 1998. Wanting to find the missing two they organised a search team to focus on the Koptyaki.

Dr. Diane France from Colorado State University, a renowned expert in forensics, went along on this trip. She was the representative of a group called Necrosearch (a group which will travel worldwide to help in locating and identifying remains in difficult and controversial cases, in other words they are PERFECT for this case).

At a meeting with Alexander Avdonin and the Obretenye Foundation a Protocol of Intention was written, we could not sign the fact that we were searching for Marie, as Maples, Falsetti and France believed that Anastasia was missing. To sign such a document would have been wrong at the time. Now you must understand... the Burial of the Royal family was going to take place the following July, and the Russians could not afford another controversy.
~Capt. Peter Sarandinaki~

Falsetti and France believed a different conclusion rather than the one presented in that Protocol of Intention, and they could not sign a paper that said they were searching for Maria.

Peter Sarandinaki has returned to Russia since then and now runs SEARCH, one of the regular teams returning to the Kopyaki to search the Pig's Meadow every summer. They have searched the Four Brothers mine area using a few different methods including electromagnetic search. This summer will wrap up the team's effort in the birch forest, and Mr. Sarandinaki will be a part of a combined effort to publish a book on the team's findings.

SEARCH consisted of author Robert K. Massie, Prince Andre Romanov, Nadja on Lowenstein Bacardi, Paul Rodzianko III, my wife Masha Tolstoy-Sarandinaki, author Marilyn Swezey, the late Bishop Basil Rodzianko, and Marie Potapov.

Alexander Avdonin is the President of the Obretenye Foundation and has worked hand in hand with members of SEARCH for the past 8 years.
~Capt. Peter Sarandinaki~