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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:
iota · 29/09/2006 19:05

Tamum, I feel compelled to post this again:

from a previous thread

By tamum on Tue 01-Feb-05 22:45
I hate to say it, but although the basic genetics is fine here, the idea that eye colour is determined by a single gene and that brown eyes are dominant over blue is completely wrong. It's a myth that has been perpetuated in loads of basic biology text books and can cause all sorts of problems as we see here Eye colour has been shown to be polygenic, so it is controlled by multiple genes. This makes it impossible to predict eye colour in offspring with complete certainty. It vaguely follows the "textbook" pattern in lots of families but by no means all.

Here endeth the lesson

tamum · 29/09/2006 19:08

If you have a science background and a lot of time on your hands there's an explanation of red hair genetics here .

Ssandy, that's true, but it's true because Floating's explanation is over-simplified. If it was a single gene and brown was dominant then you couldn't have blue eyed parents having a brown eyed child because there would be nowhere for the brown gene to come from, but because it isn't a single gene, but a major gene and lots of modifying ones, you can get blue eyed parents having brown eyed children.

Becky, I would guess that your daughter's eyes are caused by mosaicism for a mutation, but I don't think anyone actually knows.

tamum · 29/09/2006 19:08
beckybrastraps · 29/09/2006 19:14

My daughter?!

tamum · 29/09/2006 19:14

Isn't that who you meant by dd?

beckybrastraps · 29/09/2006 19:16

?

beckybrastraps · 29/09/2006 19:20

I wasn't asking about my daughter's eyes. I said that we (me, ds, dd) have khaki eyes and MIL is disappointed. But that was just a MIL story really.

The old B/b eye colour thing has a lot to anwer for IMO. I get lots of worried children asking me about it. We use other examples now.

tamum · 29/09/2006 19:22

Sorry, misread- it was bakedpotato.

CarolinaMoon · 29/09/2006 19:24

+++++* > > > > > >>

(the sight of Tamum's link as it flies over CarolinaMoon's head)

KTeepee · 29/09/2006 19:26

My Dad has brown eyes, mum has blue, not one of their 5 children has brown eyes (most are blue) so definitely not a simple case of brown being dominant

Mercy · 29/09/2006 19:39

So is hair colour/type of hair a different gene to eye colour?

sorry tamum

Beauregard · 29/09/2006 19:45

me-dark brown
dp-blue
dd1-blue
dd2-blue

SoupDragon · 29/09/2006 19:48

Me - Hazel
DH - Blue
DS1 - Fabulous ambery brown
DS2 - grey/hazel/green flecked
DD - No idea yet really. Erring towards hazel.

However,
My dad - blue
My mum - brown
DB1 - blue
DB2 - blue
Me - hazel

upandaway · 29/09/2006 19:55

Finding this thread fascinating.

This may sound a silly question but what exactly is HAZEL, is it light brown?

SoupDragon · 29/09/2006 19:56

greeny brown.

CarolinaMoon · 29/09/2006 20:09

hazel is brown with greeny bits

crazydazy · 29/09/2006 21:14

DP has dark brown eyes, I have blue both our children have a lighter brown eyes. They were dark blue at birth but went brown within the first few months.

crazydazy · 29/09/2006 21:16

I would say that DD's eyes are probably hazel then, they are not as dark as DS and her Dad's.

They both have his skin too which is not as pale as mine.

harrisey · 29/09/2006 21:43

It can be weird there are lods of mutations.

My eyes are blue. Dh has blue but with a dark brown ring round the pupil. Both dd's have dark brown anf ds has green. My Mum has green, my Dad and dh Dad are both dark brown.

It is not as simple as brown is dominant and blue eyed people cant have brown eyed kids etc .... my kids are all the spitting image of dh but with brown eyes!!

mamama · 29/09/2006 22:01

You can google this and there are several websites where you can type in yours & partner's eye colour and it will tell you probability of child's eye colour - form that we knew my son would have brown or green eyes and at 12 months they are green. Can't remember the websites or what exactly we googles, but something like 'eye colour' or 'eye colour genes', maybe add the word 'baby' in there too. SOrry can't be more help.

harrisey · 29/09/2006 22:09

You can do it here

Vindicated us and our brown eyes kids!!

nearlythree · 29/09/2006 22:21

V. interesting, my mum has always said her mil must have had an affair as both she and my grandad had blue eyes but my aunt has brown!

Did the link, strange as we have a likelihood of brown-eyed children but two of our three have blue.

MrsApronstrings · 30/09/2006 02:51

my dh is geneticist,phd etc - blue is recessive it is the absence of colour - brown eyed parent can be carrying a blue gene so if blue eyed and brown eyed parent have a baby it can have two blue genes and have blue eyes. we have - dh green
me green
dd1 hazel
ds1 green
ds2 hazel
dd2 the most stunning denim blue eyes ever seen....dh isn't worried and he knows the genetics!

Eulalia · 30/09/2006 08:49

dh has brown eyes, me blue. All 3 of our children are brown.

Eulalia · 30/09/2006 08:55

Just used that probability website. Interesting. Know nothing about dh as he is adopted with no siblings. It seems that at least one of his parents must have had brown eyes as both my parents are blue.