to really not understand the genetics involved in eye color?

[CheerfulYank]

It's all very confusing. I remember something about punnett squares, and two blue eyed people not "being able" to have a brown-eyed child, but now I think that's a myth, isn't it? Or something?

My eyes are a very pale blue, DH's are brownish hazel. DS's are blue. I was just on a website "predicting" your future children's eye colors and it said they would be brown as DH's are brown, but that's obviously not the case.

Can someone who did not spend high school biology class flirting with their lab partner explain this to me? In small words?

My eyes are brown, as are my parents (well my mother is hazel but close enough)

dp's eyes are blues, as are everyone's in his family.

My eldest two children have greyish green eyes and the youngest has brown tinged with green.

Go figure

Just to add to the mix...
DM has blue eyes, DF has brown eyes.
DB has brown eyes
Mine are deep olivy green :o

So with my green eyes, DH has hazel/grey (both DH's parents have brown eyes!)
DS has blue (same shade as my mum!)

I did work it all out at somepoint, with assistance from mum (we both studied a bit of genetics) and it was fascinating.

BTW we are all (apart from DH's parents) redheads of various shades :o

I have decided to disregard all accepted genetic research and replace it with the KFP Theory of Genetic Weirdness.

Mainly due to my freakishly blonde-haired child - there is no blonde anywhere within 2 generations of either family.

And I shall also be working on my Second Theory of Bossy Genes. This is the product of years of careful observations of my family - we tend to produce opinionated, darkish-skinned women who overrule their partner's genetic make-up to produce opinionated, darkish-skinned children.

I shall probably revolutionise genetic theory and become the Stephen Hawking of genetics. And then DP will be sorry for getting cross every time he failed to convince me that the theory of Shrodinger's Cat is actually true.

[not buying it emoticon]

Apparantly there may be more crossover between Shrodinger's cat and human biology than you'd think.

New theories suggest that biological processes may actually utilise quantum effects and those indecisive little electrons

here

No I will not read that link.

My mind is made up.

And neither DP nor any amount of credible scientific research will change it.

I still don't get it. I have hazelly/yellowy eyes and mousey hair, DH has very dark brown almost black hair and greyey/blue eyes. I'm very fair skinned he is very olivey.

DS1 has beautiful bright blonde hair with the most amazing highlights. with greyey/greeny/blue eyes.

DS2 has darker blonde hair with bright blue eyes.

Both of the childrens skin is very fair but they tan very easily and go brown!

now i did biology a,level[ although failed it badly] am also a qualified nurse [albeit mental health] so remember a bit about dominent and recessive genes i have blue eyes dh has brown eyes both my parents have blue eyes dh ,s dad has blue eyes his mum had brown eyes both our boys have gorgeous green eyes how come.

Dh and I have grey/blue eyes and ds has the deepest darkest conker colored eyes imaginable - how does THAT work then?

So, where'd green come from?

My parents and sisters all blue eyed. Me, very green.

My son has brown despite me having green and his dad having deep blue?

I am anidiot...

Should say....my parents and all siblings have BROWN eyes, not blue. Anyone?

Just to cause more confusion it is possible for eye colour to change throughout life - I looked it up because DS eyes at 3 where still hovering between grey and brown - often a mix like his dad's and MIL though they mix grey and blue - his settled on a lovely brown.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_color#Changes_in_eye_color

Not on that link but remember reading some medicines can cause a change in adults.

I know someone with a blue eye and a brown eye - DH went to school with one boy with a brown eye - and other eye was split in two between blue and brown.

My mum has blue-green eyes and my dad has brown eyes.

My left eye is blue. My right eye is split down the middle, half blue and half brown.

I have very dark brown eyes, DS's dad has light blue and DS has a bit darker, bright blue eyes. The HV said there was a 1 in 8 chance he'd have blue eyes, though if that was actually true I don't know.

Ah! Now the phenomenon of one person having eyes of different colours is down to chimeric gene expression IIRC?
That's where different alleles/genes are being expressed in different cells/tissues.
This can produce eyes of differen colours in a person - and I believe my late Aunt who I never met had this unusual trait.

I noticed a couple of weeks ago that ds's eyes have changed colour :o they were blue but are now hazel I suppose (sort of greeny brown). He is 3.9 so fairly late to be changing. Having said that it could have been months ago!

your DH is carrying a recessive allele for blue eyes...your son has inherited this allele...
which allele a child recieves from a parent is not decided by which is the dominant...as both alleles are present ...when cell division occurs in sex cells the recessive allele that the parent is carrying does not disapear...it gets its own sex cell...if this particular sperm that is carrying the recessive blue allele fertilises the egg and your egg has a blue eye allele as all your eggs must ...due to your phenotype being blue eyes which is recessive ...
this means that there are 2 alleles present in your DS's genetic code...and none of these code for brown eyes.

green eyes are recessive to brown also ...but im not sure whether green and blue are recessive/dominant to one another ...or if they share codominance...which would result in the greeny blue eyes.

Okay - so there's way more than 4 genes responsible for eyecolour, and it's really complicated!

If the chimeric gene expression hereditary too? My DD has it very clearly with a brown half of one of her grey eyes.

I have stripy eyes with a different colour at the centre to the edge.

also more than one gene can code for the same thing in different ways...there is one gene that codes for eye colour and another that codes for depth and intensity of that colour and so on....in effect multiple inherited genes effect one expressed trait.

Well.... I'm none the wiser.

My Dad has blue eyes, Mum has hazel brown. Myself and 2 siblings have blue eyes, the other 2 have dark brown eyes. The link to hair makes sense to me, though, the 3 of us with blue eyes have blondish-brown curly hair and the brown eyed 2 have straight brown hair.

My own family is boringly straightforward though, DH and I have blue eyes, as do both our DDs.

I found blood type used to interest me more than eye colour, but I think the genetics behind it is a little simpler.