If one parent is a natural redhead, and the other carries the gene, that gives them a 50% chance of their child being ginger. However, if the other parent has no ginger genes, the probability of a ginger baby falls to 0%.
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.
Both parents must possess the gene for a red-haired child to be born. Redheads have fewer strands of hair on their heads. If they both just have the gene but have brown hair lets say then there is a 1 in 4 chance of having a baby with red hair.
Hair color comes from both parents through the chromosomes passed onto their child. The 46 chromosomes (23 from each parent) have genes made up of DNA with instructions of what traits a child will inherit.
It's a recessive gene
A ginger child can only be born if both parents carry the gene. If one parent doesn't carry the ginger gene, then your child will definitely not be ginger – both parents must carry it, whether they are redheads themselves or not.
Red hair is a recessive trait, which means that only those who get two “redhead” versions of the gene, one from the mother and one from the father, will have red hair.
If two parents have any redhead genes, they can have a redhead child even if they both have dark hair.
When we casually observe via our eyes, we may feel that we have inherited most of our hair features from either our mom or dad. However, the reality is that we inherit equal volume of genetic information from both mom and dad.
All men inherit a Y chromosome from their father, which means all traits that are only found on the Y chromosome come from dad, not mom. The Supporting Evidence: Y-linked traits follow a clear paternal lineage.
Unlike nuclear DNA, which comes from both parents, mitochondrial DNA comes only from the mother.
The test will scan each parent's DNA for signs of the so-called MC1R gene that causes redheadedness. "Through a simple saliva test to determine deep ancestry, we can … identify whether an individual is a carrier of any of the three common redhead variants in the gene MC1R," said Dr.
It turns out that brown hair is dominant. That means that even if only one of your two alleles is for brown hair, your hair will be brown. The blond allele is recessive, and gets covered up.
Even brunettes and blondes can carry 'ginger gene'
Previous studies had shown that redheads inherit two versions of the MC1R gene that leads to red hair – one from their mum and one from their dad. Although almost everyone with red hair has two copies of the red-haired version of MC1R, not everyone carrying two red-haired versions is a redhead.
If you have Irish or Scottish ancestry, the chances of your baby being born with red hair are more likely. This is especially true if both parents share this heritage. If not, it is very unlikely that your child will have fiery red locks or even red tones. But remember that red hair originated as a mutation.
Recessive traits like red hair can skip generations because they can hide out in a carrier behind a dominant trait. The recessive trait needs another carrier and a bit of luck to be seen. This means that it can sometimes take a few generations to finally make its presence known.
Genetically, a person actually carries more of his/her mother's genes than his/her father's. The reason is little organelles that live within cells, the? mitochondria, which are only received from a mother. Mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell and is inherited from the mother.
The study, published in the journal Age and Ageing, also found that if the father lived to 90, it did not correlate to increased longevity and health in daughters. However, if both the mother and father lived to 90, the likelihood of the daughter achieving longevity and healthy aging jumped to 38%, researchers said.
Hair thickness is an “additive" trait. This means that if you inherited two copies of the “thick hair" version of the gene (one from each parent), you'll likely have even thicker hair strands than if you only inherited the "thick hair" version from one parent.
One popular myth is that hair loss in men is passed down from the mother's side of the family while hair loss in women is passed down from the father's side; however, the truth is that the genes for hair loss and hair loss itself are actually passed down from both sides of the family.
Red hair can change
Depending on the shade of red a baby has when it's born, it may stay a redhead or it may turn a different color. Most likely, the hair will always have some sort of red undertones to it. This may be only visible in the sun or may come out in other ways like in a man's beard.
Red hair is a recessive trait (r), while brown hair is a dominant trait (R). Recessive traits only become visible when two copies (alleles) exist within the body.
If neither parent is a redhead but both carry the gene, there is a 25% chance their child will have red hair and a 75% chance their child will carry the gene themselves. So, that's how two dark-haired parents can end up with a redhead baby. It's only a 1 in 4 odd but it does happen more often than you would think.
"Dark hair has lots of natural red tones, so when you strip it there's a lot of warmth underneath," she says. "That red can turn into orange, too, and those are the tones you need to sustain a beautiful, bright, natural-looking red." That means going red is possible without bleach — but only if your strands are virgin.