For those that know about genetics...what's the chance?

Question

I want to know if there's any chance of us getting a baby with dark brown hair. My husband has dark brown hair, and his mom did too. But his dad has reddish dark blonde hair. I have dark blonde hair, but growing up it was light blonde. My mom has dark brown hair, and my dad has dark blonde hair but it was light blonde growing up. We now have a daughter with reddish dark blonde hair and a daughter with light blonde hair. So is there any chance of this next baby to have dark brown hair, or are we destined to only have blondes?

Answer 1

Each person has two genes for each trait they posses be it eye color, hair color, height, whatever.
For each trait, you get one gene from mom, one from dad.
One gene is the gene for the charecteristic wich you posses, the other gene is a recessive trait for which you may not display but may pass on to your children.
Brown hair is always a dominant gene, the word "dominant" does not suggest that if one parent has brown hair thats what the kids will have, it means the parent with brown hair must also posses a recessive trait for another color in order to have a child with a color other than brown.
Two parents with brown hair can have kids with blonde, red, etc. all of which are RESESSIVE. But two parents with blonde can not have a child with brown.
In other words a person with a brown haired gene can also carry a red or blonde gene (this is the case with your husband) so while they themselves HAVE to have brown hair-the DOMINANT gene- their offspring could have brown or another color, depending on what the other parents gene sets look like.
Think of it like this:your gene makeup looks like this for your hair:
rr (two reccesive traits)
and your husbands looks like this:
Rr (one dominant and one reccesive)
your children get one gene from you, and one from dad, so the possibility look like this for their traits:
Rr
rr
Rr
rr
Now, EACH CHILD you have has the same chances of getting that Rr pair that you desire, so the probability is 1 in 2 or a 50% chance that you will have a child with brown hair. But remember that is a 50% chance PER CHILD, not a 50/50 chance period. In other words, you can have 100 kids and all 100 kids could end up with blonde hair, but all 100 of those kids presents the same
50% chance before birth of being born with brown hair.
I hope this was helpful and not too confusing, i learned using charts and comparison graphs, it's easier when you have a visual to demonstarte the concept.
P.S.- I'm sure my spelling is off, I'm a horrible typer and my spellcheck won't work, but this is soooooooo long i hope you will forgive me the typos!

Answer 2

Dark hair is dominant, and light hair is recessive. A person with blonde hair has 2 blonde hair genes. A person with brown hair has at least one brown hair gene, and another gene that could anything else lighter than that hair color. So....there is a very good chance that your baby could have dark brown hair, and if your husband's hidden gene is for blonde hair, blonde is a slimmer possibility. I remember this from high school biology, so I think it's accurate, but you never know what discoveries have been made in the last 10 years.

Answer 3

Since dark brown is the dominant gene in this case, and you already have 2 children with the other possible outcomes (reddish dark blonde and a light blonded) I think you may get you dark haired baby this time.....you could only know for sure if you were God

Answer 4

Overall, the dark genes are dominant, but there's a fair amount of co-dominance with hair color (that's why there's such an endless variety of shades.) My dad was white blond as a kid, but his hair turned medium brown when he was 12; my mom has dark brown hair. My sister and I were born very blond, but we pretty much knew from our parents hair color that it wouldn't stay that way. My sister is light golden brown as an adult, and mine is a fairly dark brown. Your next baby could easily have brown hair and your two blonds may not stay that way for their whole lives.

Answer 5

Anything can happen here. Pure science and genetics will tell you that dark hair is the dominant gene, but as you have already found out, that is not always the case. Every baby is a suprise, and there is also such a thing as supressed genetics, meaning anything from your lineage ages ago can pop up at any time. The only thing you can do is wait and see, and welcome the suprise and individuality of each child!

Answer 6

My father has dark brown hair and brown eyes. I am his first child and i have light hair and blue eyes like my mom. My younger sister has my dad's genes. She had dark hair and brown eyes. But she just had a child with her light haired husband and the baby's hair is light. It is something unpredictable.

Answer 7

i believe hair color comes from the mothers side...

thats why there all blonde..