Redheads

I am a redhead.  My brother and two of my sisters are redheads.  My parents are not redheads.


I've always been interested in the genetics behind being a redhead and studying the recent dna tests has brought that interest to mind again.  It is estimated that only about 1-2% of the world's population has red hair, though many more people are "carriers" meaning they have one recessive red hair gene.  It takes two recessive genes to make a redhead. When listing a dominant gene, the code to use is a capital letter (R in this case) and a lower case (r in this example) is used to indicate the recessive gene.

Here is a good explanation of how the 'redheaded gene' works:  myredhairgene

And here is a list of links about this rarest of hair colors:  Redhead  

And here is another good explanation: Red Hair Genetics

So in my family, there are a few "known redheads" from family history information, as well as the living ones.  We know, for example that my father's maternal grandfather (GWH on the scribbled chart below) and my mother's paternal grandmother (AMR) were redheads.  My maternal grandfather (JMP) was not a redhead, but his sister (V) was.  So redheaded  AMR must have had only rr genes to pass to her kids, JMP & V, but since V was a redhead, then V's father (AMR's husband) JMaP must have been Rr.  That means that at least one of  JMaP's parents had to have an r to pass along.  Confused?  Yeah, me too.  That is why drawings work.....

In order for a person to have redhair, they must inherit the recessive r gene from each of their parents giving them only rr.  So for a parent to pass on an r, they must be either Rr or rr.  IF the parent is rr, that parent is a redhead.

I'm not doing a good job explaining this!  Go read the web sites I linked to!

Anyway, even though my parents are not redheads, they have lots of redheaded descendants: 4 redheaded children, 4 redheaded grandchildren and (to date) 3 redheaded great-grandchildren.

Here is my poorly sketched chart, but hopefully it will make sense.  I only marked the people as Rr or rr where I could be sure of the genetics based on resulting hair color of parents or descendants.

So on my Dad's side, Dad is a carrier (Rr), his mom, TH, was a carrier (Rr).  I don't know about TH's mother, MM; she could have been RR or Rr.  But TH's father, GWH, is a known redhead, so he had to be rr.  And though I didn't mark it, that means GWH's parents, had to be at least each Rr, though since we don't know their hair color, one or both might have been rr.

On my Mom's side, neither my grandfather (JMP) or grandmother (GL) were redheads.  I don't know of any redheads on grandma's side, so can't deduce her genes.  But since grandpa's mother and sister were redheads and grandpa was not, we know his father (JMaP) must have been Rr, passing an R to grandpa, but passing an r to V.  Again, since we don't know the hair color of either of JMaP's parents, we don't know if either of them were redheads or if they were both 'carriers' each having Rr, but at least one of them must have had Rr.

I find it interesting enough that I code known redheads in my genealogy database hoping to keep sorting it out.

I'm sure I didn't do a very good job explaining, but I hope some of this made sense.

DNA

Recently, my husband did the dna test through Ancestry and got back his results.  I personally have not done the test, but my sister has and I suspect my results would be similar to hers, so I have not done one of my own.

I've spent some time over the past few weeks looking at the results and trying to find ways to make the data useful to my research.

My first reaction was to be overwhelmed.  As soon as his results were live on the site, there were over 200 potential 'matches.'  "Wow!" I thought.  But after having some time to review, I'm not nearly so wowed.

I realize that perhaps Ancestry is not the best place to do the test, but since I am a complete newbie to dna as it relates to genealogy, it seemed a logical place to start.  The database there is growing quickly and so potential matches pop up regularly.  They seem to be working to improve their interface and I suspect that over time, it will become more useful to me than it is now.

One frustration is the high number of 'matches' that have no family tree attached.  I wonder what is the point?  There is no way to determine if there is a connection or not if there is no family data to compare to mine.

A second frustration is the private trees that seem to be 'matches.'  I understand the need to keep a tree private, but why not create a more basic tree that you don't mind making public and linking your test to that?  That is what I did for my husband's results.  It allows other 'matches' to review enough of his tree that they can determine if there is any possible connection. 

A final frustration is that the people managing the various dna 'matches' don't answer when you write to make a connection.  Of all the attempts I've made to connect with potential dna cousins, only two have responded.

The way the dna has been useful, however, is by reviewing the 'Shared Ancestor Hints.'  This is where Ancestry looks for ancestors who are in your tree and the trees of your dna matches.  Using the shared ancestor hints, I marked a printed pedigree chart for my husband with a star on each 'shared ancestor.'  Since these are dna matches as well as research/tree matches, I see these as another piece of evidence toward proving those particular ancestors as being actually my husband's.

So far, the lines for which I was most eager to find potential cousins are the lines without any matches.  I hope over time this will change.