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I have the blessing of having ginger hair. If my partner also has ginger hair, what are the chances of our children being ginger too?
Ginger, London
- One in four.
Simon, Hinchley Wood, UK
- No one deserves that much bad luck.
Arfan Amar, Newcastle-upon-Tyne UK
- Thankfully none, if you refrain from reproducing.
Vincent Chuilon, London UK
- My understanding is that ginger hair is a recessive trait.You only get regressive traits if both of the relevant genes are for that trait, from which it follows that if both parents show the same recessive trait, then the children must also have it, unless gene-mutation takes place.Thus my answer is that your children are almost certain to be ginger too.Now compare this answer with the previous ones and decide for yourself which one to believe.
Pelham Barton, Birmingham U.K.
- I many be wrong but I thought red hair was a recessive trait. For a recessive trait to be expressed the individual must be pure breeding, hence two red heads can not produce any other colour in a child. If red hair is dominant, the chances are one in four that a child will NOT be a red head if mum and dad are both ginger nuts.However human genetics are slightly more complicated than Mendel's pea plants. Factors on other chromosomes may affect the outcome.
G. Baker, Ockendon, UK
- Hello, firstly, i do not want any further mockery from people as i too have ginger hair and i have plenty of people who admire the colour.Now, basically, as a medical student i know a bit more about genetics and i can tell you that hair colour is actually a polychromosomal phenomenon and so relies on more than simple Mendelian principles. Basically, ginger is somewhere in the middle of the hair colour spectrum and so it is more likely that to ginger haired parents will give rise to ginger haired children although is not a 100% certainty, it would be possible to have a brown haired child but more likely, the child would have ginger or blonde hair.
Darren Leaning, Sc*nthorpe UK
- I think it's got more to do with the water quality in the area in which you live - Brighton is FULL of people with ginger hair!!
Johanna Burley, Brighton UK
- I myself have come first in the gamble of life and been blessed with ginger hair. Firstly I would like to say that as a geneticist I can tell you that the spawn of 2 red headed parenrs would almost certainly suffer the same 'fate'; secondly as an attractive woman I would like to add that out of all the hair colours I have sported throughout my life, including blonde, my natural shade has attracted the most attention, jealousy and admirers.
Alex Falconer, N London UK
- Shurely Brighton is full of people using henna? Personally I have a bit of a 'thing' for the ginger girls. ask anyone.May your children and your children's children's children carry the flag!
Kyle, Woking UK
- The only people I have ever met that were glad to go grey or bald were those who had ginger hair when they were young. It is almost certain that you will produce ginger sprogs, so I suggest that when you do, you shave their heads or dye them grey to give them a head start with their preferred looks.
Hugh Jarse, Sidcup England
- Please, please, please wear a condom.
Helen, Cheshunt Hertfordshire
- According to my superstitious mother, if you pour out tea from a pot that's been brewed by someone else, you will be blessed with ginger twins. So why take the genetic lottery when you can make sure in a simple and refreshing way that your kids will be coppertops?
Brian Haines, London UK
- Now correct me if I'm wrong- but I've been looking into this myself...For a child to be born with red hair (which IS a recessive gene), each parents must have 2 red alleles each. If say, the mother had one red allele and one brown, and it was the same for the father, then the child would be born with brown hair, because the brown gene is dominant. So for red hair to come through, both parents muct have both alleles as RED.
Erin, Staffordshire England
- I suggest that you perform an empirical test by producing sufficient children in order to get some idea of the distribution of hair colours. Having forty or fifty kids would be a good start (the more the better as far as statistical tests are concerned). Then write back in to N&Q and let us all know.
Jake, Davis USA
- Moving the subject on slightly, I have just had a baby and there appears to be a hint of red in her hair. What is the likely hood of her being ginger?I have dark brown hair that shines red and my husband has mousey-coloured hair. There are no ginger bobs in the family that I am aware.
Suzanne, Oxfordshire
- There is nothing wrong with being ginger. I don't get everybody's problem. I have ginger hair myself i was bullied at school and felt forced to dye my hair. There isn't many ginger haired people. That's why everyone takes the piss- because we're different and everyone else is the same. Boring!
Jacqui ,
- Hair colour is dependent on 2 pigments: Eumelanin and pheomelanin. The less eumelanin you have, the more blond you are. The more eumelanin you have then the darker your hair is. The so called "red element" that people talk about is dependent on the amount of pheomelanin you have . The strawberry blond is obviously relatively equal amounts of both. Both you and your husband may have slightly different amounts of the pigment mentioned above. Since the gene for red hair is recessive, then it is quite likely that you will give rise to ginger offspring.
Lee, Zug, Switzerland
- If both parents are ginger, their offspring would be ginger.Reason: We inherit half our chromosomes for our father (23) and half from out mother (23), 46 in total. If both parents passed on a ginger 'infected' hair colour chromosome, the child would be ginger. If one parent passed on a non-ginger chromosome, and the other a ginger chromsome, the child would be non-ginger, since everything other than ginger is dominant over ginger. Ginger is a recessive trait. With no dominant trait present in either parents, they can only pass on the recessive ginger trait to their offspring. How non-gingers often end up producing gingers: Example - two black haired parents give birth to a ginger child. How? Both parents have to be carriers of a ginger 'infected' chromosome. They have one ginger and one black each. The black would dominate the ginger, making them have black hair. Neither would realise this, as all they would know is that their hair is black. They could both pass on the black, which would produce a black haired child, one could pass black and one ginger, also a black haired child, but if both passed on their ginger, the child would be ginger. If one parent is ginger, but the other has no ginger gene, then their offspring would never be ginger, although all would carry the gene.
Victoria, Solihull UK
- My husband and I are expecting, both of us have ginger hair and both of us would love a ginger child also. Neither of us were particuarly bullied at school, If we were then we didn't notice or care! Red hair makes you stand out from the crowd, it's how you let that make you feel that counts. I wasn't short of boyfriends and my husband did well with girls too. So all those 'wear a condom' type comments...what a joke! At least a ginger person CAN dye their hair if they want to to escape the bullies. Ignorance is a much less easier traits to hide, it shines from the very tip of your biggoted brains! It's an ugly thing to be so unkind to people because of their hair colour. In fact it borders on the ridiculous. Simple people, ugly minds and blackened hearts. I wish you all a ginger baby! Then we'll see how you view red heads. Or maybe a ginger grandchild...what on earth would you do then?! How utterly silly.
Catherine Badham, Worcester, England
- I completely agree with you Catherine, people are simple-minded and it is a form of prejudice when they bully gingers! It does make me mad, however the Pixar film 'Brave' has given redheads a positive representation as beautiful and powerful. My partner and I are also redheads and look forward to ginger babies.
Sarah Davies, Hull, England
- I agree with both of you. There aren't many gingers in Portugal, so I get really surprised when I see that it actually exists people who hates ginger. I think it's so ridiculous people that think that way of such a beautiful color and it's just a shame I can't see it more often in here. I have dark brown hair and my partner has red hair. I wouldn't mind at all (I would love) to have ginger kids. But in this case, I don't really know what's the chances.
Marina, Portugal
- I'm hoping to get a ginger girl and am ginger myself. I'll let you know how I get on.
Jake, horsham uk
- She said no
jake, horsham uk
- This is rather quite funny, I've always wondered this. I'm a red head but my parents and my brothers and sisters don't have red hair, and I have a child who has turned out to look nothing like me: tanned, blue eyes, mousey hair. I don't get all the stupid comments about red hair. I've never been bullied, or dyed my hair. I get a pretty good tan and I've had quite a few boyfriends who've all been sexy as.
Nikki, United Kingdom
