If Mine and My Boyfriends Hair Is Brown, What Color Will Our Babies Hair Be

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THE BODY BEAUTIFUL

I have ginger hair and my partner has really dark brown almost black hair. Both my parents have brown hair, so it seems strange that I have ginger hair. What is the likelihood of our children having ginger hair? No-one else as far as I know in my family or my partner's family has ginger hair either.

Chloe Jakes, Blandford, UK

• What colour hair did the milkman have?

  Paul Turner, Toronto, Canada

• Hair colour is determined by the genetic make up of your parents and grandparents and great grandparents etc... Every generation will carry the ginger gene, though in your families recent history (until you were born) the gene was recessive, hence your parents and grandparents didn't have ginger hair. There's around 25% chance that your children will have ginger hair. the calculation works like this: There are 2 hair colours that you'll pass to your children black (b) and ginger (g) If we mix those colours and assume that the ginger gene is recessive i.e. it will always be dominated by black the following results are available: bb bg gb gg Ony the gg result would produce a ginger haired child. So your parents may have been a bg and a bg but both their hair colours were black, as it turned out you were the 1 in 4 gg, likewise your partner could carry the recessive ginger gene but she also has the black gene which is dominant.

  Andy Preston, Otley, UK

• To have ginger hair, you must have received one copy of what is a recessive gene from each of your parents. They only had one copy each, since the other, dominant gene for brown hair colouring was being expressed in their case. What this means is that all your children will receive one ginger hair gene from you and the likelihood of them having ginger hair will depend on what they receive from your partner. If, like your parents, your partner is carrying a single ginger hair gene along with a single brown hair one, then your children will have a 50/50 chance of having ginger hair. If your partner has no genes for ginger hair, then the chance is nil, and you will have to wait for grandchildren for another chance for your ginger hair to re-express itself.

  Ian Brown, Herne Hill, UK

• One theory used to be that red hair was a recessive condition: ie that both your parents carried a gene for red hair while also having one for dark hair. The "dark-haired" gene would have been dominant, giving them the dark-hair phenotype. If both of them happened to pass on the red-haired gene to you, you'd have both the phenotype and genotype for red hair. With regards to you and your husband having a red-haired offspring, we'd have to guess whether he's a carrier for the red-hair gene.

  Gerry Dunlop, Zeal Monachorum, Crediton, UK

• I would sit your mother down and have a frank discussion about her prior relationship with the milkman.

  Louise Vippond, Doha, Qatar

• Andy Preston's calculation of a 1 in 4 chance relates to a future sibling of yours, not to a child. If your partner carries the gene for ginger hair, then there is a 1 in 2 chance that your child will have ginger hair. If he does not, then there is no chance. To talk in general terms about "the likelihood" gets us into all sorts of problems about subjective probability. The fact that no-one in your partner's family has ginger hair means that he is less likely to carry the gene for ginger hair than an average person of his age, birth town, medical history, etc.

  Pelham Barton, Birmingham, UK

• I do not know, but I wish you luck.

  Jonathan, Lancaster, England

• I heard that neither of your parents need to have the gene for ginger hair and that it comes from a lack in Eumelanin

  James B, London, England

• 1 in 2 chance of your child being a redhead if your parter carries the ginger gene. Zero chance of you having a child with red hair if your partner does not carry the ginger gene.

  Indi, Glasgow, Scotland

• My Mum's father had ginger hair. My Mum (his only child) had brown hair. I'm one of six kids, two of which have ginger hair. Both of us ginger haired siblings have children. Julian has Taylor,I have Ellis and Owen. All three have ginger hair,despite our partners having brown hair. Im ever so proud that we are going forth and multiplying.

  Rory Wilson, Watford England

• Red hair is caused by a mutation of the melanocortin-1 receptor gene on chromosome 16. Most red heads have a mutation on both copies of this gene, however approximately 15% have the mutation on only one of the genes and typically have lighter red hair. So red hair is not a generic genetics problem you can solve with a simple punnet square.

  Ashleigh, Lexington USA

• FYI for anyone who chances across this board in the future... I KNOW red hair does not work like they teach it in school. I know it is possible to have red hair even if you only have one parent with the gene. My dad's dad had blond hair, his mom had dark brown hair. My dad has brown and his sister had blond. My dad is either a Brown/blond or Brown/brown genotype. I have Irish Setter-like red hair as does my mom. I know there was no "milk man" because I otherwise look very much like my dad's family (more so than my mom's) including a chin cleft (another genetically inherited trait). My mom's red hair came to her similarly. Grandpa had black hair, grandma red. My mom's brothers have dark brown hair, so grandpa wasn't a red/Black and grandma wasn't a red/red. Red hair is co-dominant in cows maybe in people too. You might have a ginger child...some shade of red from strawberry to copper or auburn.

  Anne R, Santa Barbara USA

• Wow im really worried about this i have ginger has as so as my grandmother and cusion but not my partner or his family do you think my children will have ginger hair????

  Chloe Flaherty, stoke on trent uk

• I am a ginger and proud of it! So much so that I pray my children will be gingers too!

  Johann Venter, Sasolburg South Africa

• First of all I think it is very sad but also quite hilarious that people are 'worried' that their children will have red hair!! However just to add to the previous answers, yes red hair is usually caused by a mutation in the MC1R gene which can be inherited. It is also the case that ANYONE can have a mutation of ANY gene so even someone with non-carrying parents can have red hair. You might be better 'worrying' about future children being born with serious illnesses rather than red hair!

  Clare Elaine, Liverpool UK

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If Mine and My Boyfriends Hair Is Brown, What Color Will Our Babies Hair Be

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/notesandqueries/query/0,,-69864,00.html

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