totally random: red hair

[monkey68]

My biological parents had Black hair (mother) and Blonde hair (father). I have red hair

My daughters' paternal grandparents have redish blonde hair (grandmother) and brown (grandfather) and their dad has brown.

All three of my daughters have brown hair.

Now eye color... thats where everything gets bazaar.

I have light brown eyes. The girls' father has blue eyes (his parents had green and brown). All three girls have deep dark beautiful brown.

Ooo! I can answer for eye color. See, not everything is simple Mendelian genetics, eye color is one of those traits, maybe hair color is too, but I'm not sure on that. But eye color is definitely not as simply inherited as the little pea traits that Mendel worked with. I don't remember the exact rules of it, but it has something to do with the genes for eye color only being partially expressed. There's also multiple genes that account for eye color. And there are 3 pigments that are actually produced, yellow, brown, and blue I think, and the color that you see depends on how much of each pigment is produced. When you take into consideration the fact that the genes kind of move around when they're going through meiosis to give genetic variability, you end up with a whole complicated system where pretty much anything is possible.

-Mom has green eyes and red hair, dad is blond and blue eyes, both my sister and I have dark hair and dark eyes.

 

[missypie]

I have brown hair. DH has blonde. We have two red heads and a blonde!

My sister has red hair, so we know the gene came from me. But NO ONE in the memory of anyone living knew of any relative before her with red hair.

I always think that if your family was originally from the UK/Scotland/Ireland, you have a bit of ginger in you.

 

[koima]

My husband's dad had curly red - he was called "(firstname) Redbeard." My husband and I both have brown hair, mine straight, his curly. Our first son has straight brown hair, and our daughter has curly red hair. Genetics are interesting!

 

[Evil Genius]

My dh had red hair, his ex has black hair, both girls have beautiful dark red hair (auburn almost plum colored in the sun) and my stepson has blonde hair and is the spitting image of my dh.

 

[Aimeedyan]

MIL has fire engine red hair. FIL has dark brown hair.

DH has red hair. His sister has dark brown hair.

Sister's 2 kids (from different fathers) both have fire engine red hair.

We don't have children yet but I'm still holding out hope they will get that red hair but since it skipped SIL and went to her kids, I doubt it.

 

[Aneille]

Well DH and I are both brown haired as are our parents.

We have 1 brown haired child, and 2 with red. A nice color red I may add.

Also with eye color we are both brown.

Our brown hair child has dark chocolate color eyes.

Our DD with red hair has the same dark chocolate color eyes, very interesting combo.

Our DS with red hair has green eyes with gold flecks.

 

[Aneille]

There is a book that my DD is featured in.

I don't have anything to do with the book other than my DD being featured and my sons photo being in it.

So for those with little red heads its a cute book with beautiful pictures and tons of little facts in there too.

I am not sure if posting the link to the book's website is okay to do or not. If its not just let me know and I'll remove it.


http://www.littleredheadsacrossamerica.com

 

[bumbershoot]

Now what if mom has red hair (rr) and dad has brown hair with no recessive red gene (BB). These kids end up having what color hair? Brown? How do they get brown if mom has red (rr)?

Well, how do you KNOW there's no red gene on either side????

I say, you don't know until it happens. If it doesn't happen, you still don't know.


Hubby's half Korean. Mom has black hair, FIL had black hair. I've generally had dishwater blond, and there were no red-heads around. My mom had brown, aunt helped hers be reddish, brother has bright blond, dad's family is either blonde or brown (with Paul Newman blue eyes OR chocolate brown...I have deep blue LOL but that's probably b/c of my mom).

We would NEVER have thought anyone had any red....until Ronald McDonald arrived (seriously ORANGE hair).

only then did people choose to share with us that FIL's long dead (and only photographed in B&W) half sisters had bright red hair, and only after that was "out" I found out that my long dead grandfather (young pix in B&W, color pix right before he died in his early50s he had white hair) had auburn hair.

And then MIL shared with us that she, a full Korean person, actually had reddish hair, and started dying it as soon as she could, because her fellow villagers made fun of her for having "poor" hair (tiny village in rural Korea).


You don't know until you know, sometimes, and in real HUMAN life it just doesn't seem to be as simple as it is with peas or fruit flies!


We could also talk about how my deep blue eyes and hubby's *so dark brown only the best ASIAN (no caucasians have done it) eye doctors can find his pupils eyes* created AMBER eyes in DS! First blue (Korean babies don't have blue eyes so that freaked out MIL), then green, then hazel, settled to "matching his hair", but since red eyes sounds scary, we call them amber. And when he's sick or upset, they turn green.

We're not fruit flies, most definitely.

 

[DisneyDreamer8]

Well I have red hair and DH has dark brown. Our DS has blonde

Now my great grandfather was a redhead with blue eyes (from Norway) so there is red in my family. DH has no red in his family and they all have brown eyes.

Our DS has ice blue eyes. Where they came from I have no idea. I have Hazel that change color (mostly greens, greys and blues) depending on what I wear. DH as dark brown eyes.

All this genetic stuff confuses me.

But I guess since my DS was conceived via IUI there is always a chance there was a mix up

 

[PUZZLDY5]

Ok I can chime in on this converstion. I have no idea how the whole genetic thing works I am pretty sure I slept through that part of science class but I truly believe it is a genetic fluke of some sort to get a red headed kid and here is why. I have Auburn hair now. When I was little it was very red almost an orange color. My great grandmother (maternal), my mothers sister and myself are the only people in our family to have red hair. We are also the only people in the family to posess hazel eyes. None of my children have red hair or even red highlights for that matter. 2 are blond and one is brown and all have blue eyes. Go figure.
ETA: My husband has dark brown hair and brown eyes.

 

[englishteacha]

I'm the only natural blonde in a family of 8. My nephew, age 13, is the only redhead out of all my parents' grand kids.

My aunt had red hair, and my SIL's dad had red hair, so my brother and SIL must be carriers of the red gene.

Still don't know why I'm blonde. I look just like my dad, though, so we know I'm not the mailman's daughter!

 

[robinb]

Haha! I feel the same way, I thought I would get at least some red highlights out of the girls.

Nope. Not even red highlights. She swims outdoors all summer and gets these really lovely whitish blond highlights that people pay good money for *sigh*. I was keeping my fingers crossed that she will darken up to be kind of auburn but it doesn't look like that will happen.

 

[Cindyluwho]

I had red hair when I was younger. It's darkened into auburn now.

Nobody in our family has red hair, not mom, dad, siblings, grandparents, etc.

So where did my red hair come from?

When people asked me where my red hair came from, My mother taught me to say, "From the milkman". Oh, they laughed and thought I was sooooo cute. I was about 9 or 10 when I figured it out. Not real funny when your mom is the town tramp!

That being said, my aunt had red hair but had no redheaded kids. My parents did not have red hair but had two redheaded kids. My DD does not have red hair, perhaps her children will?

 

[JVL1018]

Same with 2 blue eyed/green eyed/gray eyed parents can't produce a brown eyed kid. Brown's dominant, blue/breen/gray's recessive.

Hazel just messes me up, can't remember what that is.

My son has a half a brown eye. LOL My husband and I are both brown haired blue eyed people, and he was born with blond hair(not a surprise, my MIL and BIL and both of my brothers are blond). His hair has since darkened, and he has mostly blue eyes with one that is almost half brown. I was so so so hoping they would cahneg to brown(always wanted brown eyes myself) but nope. His eyes look pretty cool, he loves them!

Oh and my older brother has blond hair, but his facial hair is red-not strawberry blond-it's RED. No redheads that I know of anywhere in the family, but must've been somewhere.

 

[mom2rb]

My dad and one of his sisters have red hair. She has three kids, my dad has four. None of us have red hair. One of my sons has reddish brown hair. My brothers and I don't want any of us to have a red headed kid. If one of us does, then they will be the favorite grandkid.

My dad had two different wives. My mom has black hair and my step-mom has blond. He has two black haired children and two blond haired children.

 

[LisaNJ25]

So where does curly hair come from?

 

[luvsJack]

Both of my grandmother's were red-headed. My father had red hair, my mom's original color was black or really dark brown (she has been dyeing in auburn for so long she doesnt' remember). My sister and I have bright red hair, one brother has auburn hair and the other brother was a blonde.

My parents have 10 grandchildren and 16 great-grandchildren--out of all of those there is one redhead and that's one of my sons. None of the rest even have red highlights.

Someone mentioned eye color. I don't know anything about genes and such but apparently blue eyes is dominant? My sons both have bright blue eyes and they get them from their father's family. Every child, grandchild and great-grandchild has blue eyes in that family. In fact if a child was born without the blue eyes, I am afraid questions would be asked. And they are all the exact same shade of bright blue eyes.

 

[Sonya]

I have blond/red. (red from my grandpa)
DH has BB. No red in his family.

DS has blond hair and the twins have brown hair. So disappointing. Oh well, now that they carry the red gene maybe I can have red haired grandchildren!

 

[OhioStateBuckeye]

My dad has red hair and my mom has brown. Myself and my oldest sister both have red, and my youngest sister has brown like my mom.