To think this is a very high number of redheads for one family?

[HackerFucker22]

I'll start by saying it's my family and this is no slant on redheads BUT I did think the ginger gene was recessive?

My Mum has 11 grandchildren and x8 of them are redheads.

None of my mum's kids are actually redheads though.

My sister (darkhaired) and her redheaded partner have 5 kids - all ginger!
My brother (darkhaired) and his strawberry blonde partner have 4 kids - 3 of whom are redheads.
Myself and my partner are darkhaired, we have one darkhaired child and one bald one...

Just wondering if anyone else has a high number of redheads in their family?

It's unusual to have 100% of your kids being ginger if parents are darkhaired and redheaded right?

(my sister and SIL both refer to their children as ginger so it's not being used an offensive term here)

[ThumbWitchesAbroad]

It's not really that surprising, is it. Look at what you've posted - your darkhaired sister (with a recessive red gene) has bred with a red haired man who obviously has 2 red haired genes, therefore there was always a high chance of red haired children.
Ditto the one with strawberry blonde partner.

And then we come to the fact that hair colour just isn't that simple - genes aren't as straightforward as we're led to believe in whatever level of biology class you took - and then finally there is conservation of genes, which means that a minority group tends to remain at a constant level in a population.

So gingers will never be bred out, despite being recessive, any more than Rh negative blood types will, despite the same.

[Dowser]

My red haired friend had three red haired brothers and two red haired parents. Her daughter had red hair. But not the daughters own son.

[HackerFucker22]

Meant to say no redheads on my side as far back as I can go - which granted is only as far back as my maternal and paternal grandparents.

[MammaTJ]

I am a redhead with two children out of three being ginger! The one who is blonde has married a man who is ginger and is pregnant. I really do hope my first grandchild is ginger too!

There do seem to be more people with ginger hair around than there were when I was younger, which can only be a good thing and lead to less teasing!

[ragged]

Sounds unusual to me.
There's a community in Russian Federation where 1/3 of the popn are redheads.
My gran (black hair) married 2 redhead men & produced 4/6 redheads, leading to 0/15 redhead grandchildren. So far just 2 of the 16 great-grandkids are redhead. We all think this is a great tragedy :).

[RandomMess]

It's actually quite common for red hair to skip a generation. Loads of my cousins have a red hair neither of my parents nor my aunts & uncles do!

[sproketmx]

Eh aye, Scottish and Irish have a shit load of gingers.

[FinglesMcStingles]

DF has dark hair, DM is ginger. DF obviously carrying the ginger gene, because my siblings and I are all ginger. None of our kids are, but they must all be carrying a ginger gene, so I have hope for ginger grandchildren one day!

[monkeysox]

My hairdressers always struggle to make my now mousy (was blonde)hair blond. As it has "a lot of warmth" my grandad was a ginger :-)

[Kim82]

I have red hair on both sides of my family - my maternal grandad and my paternal auntie - neither of them had red haired children.

My parents don't have red hair, I have very dark hair, my ex (and father to my 2 eldest) has very dark hair, Ds is strawberry blonde, dd1 is blonde. Hair colour is very complicated!

I have since married, dh has red hair and we have had 2 more girls, the first has gorgeous strawberry blonde hair and the second has blonde hair with a slight tinge of red. Mine are the only red haired children in the family on either side.

My redheaded grandad had 4 dark haired children, my redheaded auntie had 3 blonde kids. No idea why it's only me whose passed on the red hair gene. I love it though!

[grumpysquash]

Red hair is recessive, it's also a variant of blond.

If your mum was a red head, you and your siblings will be carrying a 'red gene' which doesn't show as you are also carrying a 'dark gene' which is dominant.

But the hidden red is passed to your children with a 50/50 chance. The red headed and strawberry blonde partners will both pass on a 'red gene' as they have no dark genes. So it is no surprise that there are many redheads amongst the grandchildren.

So your question about 100% of kids being ginger if one parent is dark and the other ginger.....each child would have a 50:50 chance of being ginger. So the chances of your sibling having five ginger children is the same as the chance of having 5 boys, or the chance of flipping a coin and getting 5 heads is a row. It's 1:32. So a bit unusual, yes, but not extremely so.

Maybe the unusual thing there is that both your siblings married redheads?

Genetics is absolutely my favourite subject!

Also interested in eye colour in your redheads.......are they mostly blue? Any green? Anyone with brown?

[NaughtToThreeSadOnions]

I don't get this anti red hair thing in England. I know you say it isn't but, would you post going this is a lot of blond or brunettes for one family?!
Also dark and blonde hair can often be a shade of red, my sister for has what any one would call dark black hair, until you get close to it and you see it's actually got a red sheen to it, my brother like wise has very light blonde hair, he's just grown a beard and it's come out red.
Me I'm just alburn you can see I'm a red head it gets lighter in the summer and darker in the winter so it's almost brown. My point is that actually some of those people who aren't what you would call ginger/red may actually be red/carrying the red gene.
I know all our family do because well We're irish, it's funny actually my gran was so proud of my hair, because to her I was the only one that had inherited the red hair. But actually at least 2 of my siblings have just not as visibly!

[WhatsGoingOnEh]

My mum was a redhead and married my strawberry-blond Dad. I'm a ginger, and my brother is dark brunette/red.

I had two DC with a dark-haired man, and neither of them is a ginger at all. They're both dark-haired like him.

I have no idea why that is. But I guess maybe my GC might be ginger?

[FirstWeTakeManhattan]

It's my dream hair colour. I would love to have red hair. I think it's absolutely beautiful.

[sproketmx]

Most of our lots are green or hazel. None have blue with red hair but two of my wee ones have dark hair with blue eyes

[Samiam123]

Are you the Weasleys, OP?

[NaughtToThreeSadOnions]

Also interested in eye colour in your redheads.......are they mostly blue? Any green? Anyone with brown?

Now this is interesting, because both my oldest brother and I have blue eyes, (again resesive gene?) out of the two of us I clearly have the red hair he doesn't, both our parents have brown eyes. Actually mine aren't blue, but that stormy colour that you can be very blue when happy or very Grey when pissed off. (Expressive irish eyes)

[Kim82]

Ds - red hair, blue eyes
Dd - red hair, green eyes

[Coffeethrowtrampbitch]

I think it's so surprising as its a recessive gene, so many dark haired people can carry it without realising.

Dh and I have very dark brown hair, but we both had ginger dads, so two of our three children have red hair.

I used to be asked if I was a childminder as the dc are close in age and two of them don't look like me at all at first glance!

[Sighing]

The MC1R gene controls melanin (which in turn affects skin colour, hair and eyes). Hair colour etc geneS can be inherited but it's possibly your bodies use of melanin (more less) that impacts on which genes are obvious (dark head hair coupled with ginger beards or body hair is quite common).
Ginger does appear occasionally in my family, I was born ginger but have faded to mostly brown, bleach and/ or sun give me ginger highlights. Both of my daughters get described as ginger (their dad is strawberry blonde) though neither of them are solely ginger nor a very intense shade.
There are so many shades of 'ginger' (like other hair colours).
My parents are both very dark haired. My brother quite blonde. Earlier takes on genetics had my family questioning my parentage. Thank goodness more is known!

[MissMarpleCat]

To produce a redhead both parents have to carry the MC1R gene, but not necessarily be a redhead. If both parents carry the gene then there is a 25% chance of redhead child. The odds go up if one or both parents are redheads

[summerainbow]

Red hair = viking.