Does anyone know about recessive/dominant genes? re: hair colour etc.

[Columbia]

Does anyone know which genes are recessive and which dominant?

Ds2's dad has very blondy/gingery hair (sandy, a bit like Boris Becker) with freckles and pale eyebrows/lashes etc.

He had two children before Ds, with a woman of Italian descent - dark hair etc. but her father wasn't Italian so she is fairly English looking. Both are now at secondary school.
The boy has mousey hair, a few freckles, very unremarkable colouring...the girl has sandy hair and brows like her dad.

She used to be mousey too, so I am completely confused as to how it works!

Ds2 is so far very blonde, he is only 5 months old. My elder son (different father) is mouse like me. He was blondy/mousey as a baby.

I am mousey, always have been apart from being a white-blonde toddler! so whose colouring will Ds2 get?

(His eyes are blue like mine, his dad's weren't, one small victory )

you need tamum, methinks

Ooh is she a geneticisst (sp)

It's not that clear cut. For instance usually it's the darker gene that's dominant, but if dark haired parents have the same recessive blond gene then their children could be blond. I'm dark but my grandmother was a redhead and I may be carrying the gene for red hair so could feasibly have a red haired child etc etc etc.

Oh I see. Thankyou for explaining. Actually I am as muddled as I was before but that's just my little brain struggling...

I have a Grandmother with Auburn hair as well, mine has shown hints of red...well I guess there's no way of knowing till his hair decides by itself!

Interesting to see though. I take the 'children as scientific experiments' line of thinking, great fun

she knows stuff like this

Yes, Tamum is hte expert.

But I still don't understand

Hello, and thanks for all the faith put in me The problem is that hair colour and so on are not, in the main, single gene traits. The only real exception to this is red hair, and blonde (possibly to a lesser extent). So it's going to be impossible to predict what will happen to your ds2 I'm afraid, because it's a real mixture of multiple loci having greater or lesser effects. Sorry, I realise that hasn't helped in the least!

that's what makes it all so FUN!
(having babies I mean)

God knows how it works, both dh and I are brown eyed and brown hair. DD is blonde and blue! Definately not the milkmans either!

It's difficult .. I have dark wavy hair, pale skin, and dark brows and lashes, and ds's dad has straight mousy sandy hair, and sandy brows and lashes.

Ds1 has straight sandy hair, and sandy brows - but very very dark lashes (like mine) with the same pale freckles his dad and I both have.

Ds2 has my complection - almost porcelain as a child - sandy brows AND lashes, wavy hair - that is very blond.

I don't think it's one or the other, I think it can graduate. Like the children of mixed heritage couples look 'mixed', not just one or the other.

But I am a care assistant, not a genetesist.(SP!)

That's it really colditz, it can "graduate" because there are several genes involved- it's not quite a continuous trait like height but not far off.

thankyou all

Califrau, they will both be carriers of the red hair gene from what you say about your family history, but unless they also got a copy from your dh then they wouldn't be redheads. It all fits, honest. Of course, if they marry women with red hair in the family then you might be in luck and have red haired grandchildren

It's all v bizzarre

I have poker straight gingery-brown hair and hazel eyes

DP has wiry brown hair and brown eyes

Both DSs have gree eeyes (which I am very of) and gorgeous blonde curly hair [which I am also v of)

Apparently redheads are dying out, so we all need to find each other and mate...quickly

I have red hair, from my Grandad, but both my parents had dark brown hair. Dd has red hair and browns eyes...is a carbon copy of me in fact. Dh has blond hair and blue eyes, and we thought we might get and annie-esque dd, but she is auburn like me.