Gleb Botkin - DNA Used To Identify Father's Remains

DNA Used To Identify Father's Remains

Botkin and his wife had four children, daughter Marina and sons Nikita, Peter, and Yevgeny (Eugene). He also had a stepdaughter, Kyra. His daughter Marina Botkina Schweitzer's DNA was later used to help identify the remains of her grandfather, Eugene Botkin, after they were exhumed in 1991 from a mass grave discovered in Ganina Yama near Ekaterinburg. Schweitzer's DNA was compared against the DNA of her maternal half-sister Kyra, who also gave a blood sample, to help scientists isolate the DNA Schweitzer shared in common with her grandfather. This enabled scientists to create a "Botkin DNA profile" and use it to positively identify Dr. Botkin. Scientists in the early 1990s were unable to identify Dr. Botkin using mitochondrial DNA, or DNA that is passed down from mother to child, as they used it to identify the Romanovs. Schweitzer was descended from Dr. Botkin in the paternal line and didn't share mitochondrial DNA with her father and grandfather.

Schweitzer later expressed skepticism about the DNA results proving that Anna Anderson could not have been the Grand Duchess Anastasia.

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