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Original poster

inherited eye colour question

115 replies

mummy115 · 29/09/2006 17:06

i read in daily paper that if a dad has brown eyes and mum blue child will have brown as predominent brown gene.so if a dad has hazel and mum blue should all children have hazel/brown or can they have blue?any experts.my hubby hazel and me blue our children have hazel.however his children from previous blue eyed partner is one of each.....(she was sleeping around at time blue one conceived so its preying on our minds)is it possible or not?

OP posts:
moyasmum · 29/09/2006 18:06

I have blue eyes.
Dh has hazel.
Both kids have blue eyes.

Both of my parents had brown eyes, as have my three bothers.
I always took it that i had a recessive gene from my mat. granddad.

Will now read the rest of the thread, to find out if this is likely!

jalopy · 29/09/2006 18:07

My sister has green eyes and her husband has brown eyes. One of their children has blue eyes.
Genetics is lost on me

elliedragon · 29/09/2006 18:08

My dh and I have blue eyes, our 2 ds have blue eyes. Can we only have blue eyed children?

pooka · 29/09/2006 18:10

DH- very brown
Me- brownish (but grey as a child)

DD - blue as blue can be
DS - brown as a jersey cow.

SoupDragon · 29/09/2006 18:12

Not necessarily, Elliedragon.

elliedragon · 29/09/2006 18:14

Better tell Dh as we both assumed could only have blue eyed children. He may think something is up if next baby doesn't have them!!

SoupDragon · 29/09/2006 18:19

hehehe. I don't think it's common though.

SSSandy · 29/09/2006 18:20

-throwing in another question here -

If eyes are going to change colour. What age will this have happened by? Anyone know?

bakedpotato · 29/09/2006 18:24

DH and DS are blue, I'm sludge, and DD has one blue eye and one brown (like David Bowie).

I think DD's fab colour-combo is due to a quirk of pigment development rather than genetics... does anyone know?

pooka · 29/09/2006 18:31

Don't know exactly why it happens BP - but a friend's dd has one brown and one blue eye. It's sometimes more noticeable than other times, but really striking in a good way. Kate Bosworth (Orlando Bloom's ex) has the same.

CarolinaMoon · 29/09/2006 18:40

can I hijack very briefly to ask:

is it true that red hair colour is co-dominant - i.e. it 'mixes' with other colours, so red+blonde genes = strawberry-blonde and red+brown genes = auburn?

iota · 29/09/2006 18:41

As a point of information, David Bowie doesn't really have 2 different coloured eyes - one pupil is damaged and is permanently dilated, making it seem that it is a different colour to the other

Ulysees · 29/09/2006 18:45

DH brown eyes, me blue/green. DS1 brown eyes with a blue flash? DS2 bright blue eyes.

CarolinaMoon · 29/09/2006 18:45

one of my PE teachers at school had one brown eye and one eye that was half brown and half blue.

(I suppose because a bit of her iris didn't have enough melatonin in it, for whatever reason - I learned that on tamum's link )

iota · 29/09/2006 18:48

david bowie

FloatingOnTheMed · 29/09/2006 18:51

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

beckybrastraps · 29/09/2006 18:55

It's not as simple as you learned in Biology!!

We use other examples now for teaching about genetics.

But I did get lots of children asking about eye colour....

schneebly · 29/09/2006 18:56

My mum had hazel eyes and my dad green eyes

mine were blue as a child and now greeny grey
1 brother has very blue eyes and the other (like my ds2) has lovely eyes which are blue round the edge with a greeny-yellow bit around the pupil - here is ds2's eyes colour.

tamum · 29/09/2006 18:58

Floating, it's not as simple as you learned in biology, it's a popular misconception which gets propagated in textbooks because it's an easy way to explain genetics (but misguided in my view because it leads to these endless paternity questions). Iota posted one of my earlier explanations further down.

CarolinaMoon, red hair tends to be recessive, but again it's not completely simple. There is one gene encoding most of it though, a melanocortin receptor.

Mercy · 29/09/2006 18:59

Carolina, I'm interested in the hair colour thing too.

Me, brown eyes, brown/black hair (thick and wavy)

Dh, blue eyes, brown/black hair (curly)

dd and ds have blue eyes and fair hair. dd very fine, dead straight hair: ds average very slightly wavy hair.

I always thought we would have blue-eyed, dark-brown haired children!

CarolinaMoon · 29/09/2006 18:59

ooooh schneebly, my ds's eyes are (atm) the exact same colour as your ds2's

It is a lovely colour.

SSSandy · 29/09/2006 19:00

Floating I read that a couple of times but I didn't get it really

I mean if blue eyed people can have one brown and one blue gene (which is my case), surely two blue-eyed people can conceivably both have enough brown genes to produce a brown-eyed child?

Feeling slightly confused...

CarolinaMoon · 29/09/2006 19:02

I have blonde hair and dp has red hair (vibrantly so). Ds has strawberry-blond hair. There is no red at all in my family, AFAIK.

So it seems to have worked that way so far...

SewingMadMummy · 29/09/2006 19:03

Ok here goes
My parents - both blue eyes
Me brown/hazel
Dh blue
His parents blue
Dd1 blue, dd2 green!

CarolinaMoon · 29/09/2006 19:05

and my sister is also blonde, while both our parents have dark brown hair (or did before it went grey).

The blonde is from both our grandfathers, I think.

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