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Asked by whiteleyinnit to Charlie, Eoin, Jemma, Julian, Steve on 22 Mar 2011.
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Stephen Moss answered on 22 Mar 2011:
Hi Whiteley
Hair colour is determined by a complex set of genes, and the problem is made more difficult by the fact that it can change as we get older. My guess is that somewhere in your family, you have a grandparent with ginger hair (or who had ginger hair when they were young).
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Charlie Ryan answered on 22 Mar 2011:
hi whiteley again! Thanks for your question.
I dont really know the answer though, but think its possible with regard to genetics for you to have ginger hair and your parents not to. I think its due to something called the recessive gene. Also i think blonde hair and ginger are somehow genetically linked….
You’ll probably get a better response from a biologist!! -
Julian Rayner answered on 22 Mar 2011:
Hi whitely. Hair colour is a fairly simple genetic trait. Red hair is a recessive trait – you need to have both copies of the red hair gene to get it (you have two copies of almost every gene – one from your mother, and one from your father). If your parents each have one copy of the red, but one copy of another gene, which is dominant, your sisters must have got one of the dominant genes from one of them (and so have blonde or brown hair), but you wound up with both red hair genes (and so have red hair).
Plenty of other traits are simple like this – whether you can roll your tongue, whether your earlobes are connected to your head, whether you smell something funny in your pee if you eat asparagus. More things though, like height, are much more complicated – influenced by many many genes, and each gene only has a slight impact. Many common diseases are in this group too – things like hear disease and diabetes are so-called “multigenic” traits, influenced by multiple genes, as well as the environment (what you eat/where you live). Genetics can be pretty complex!
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Eoin Lettice answered on 22 Mar 2011:
Hi whiteleyinnit,
Good question.
Just because your parents and siblings don’t have ginger hair, doesnt mean you can’t! You are a great example of a person with a recessive gene.
Hair colour is controlled by a gene which can be a number of different alleles or types which can give you blonde, brown, black, ginger hair etc.
Each person usually contains two of these alleles and one is generally dominant over another. The ginger allele is not dominant (we call it recessive) which means that to have ginger hair, the child (you!) need to inherit two copies of the ginger allele from your parents which is less likely to happen than inheriting a dominant allele giving blonde or brown hair.
I hope I’ve explained that in an easy to understand way! Your sisters may well be carrying the ginger gene and their children might be ginger.Eoin
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