What color would my baby's hair be?

Question

I have orange wavy hair and brown eyes. She has brown curly hair and brown eyes.

So I figure that our baby would have brown eyes. I know that dark dominates over red. but my father had BLONDE hair and my mother had dark brown. And i came out with orange.

So what is it most likley, that a baby would come out, between an orange haired person and a darker brown haired person?

Answer 1

Your possible genotype is rr homozygous recessive for red hair encoded by the gene MC1R. For you to have red hair both your parents were heterozygous for the trait, Rr x Rr. You will donate only one possible allele, the recessive, to your children.

What you need are your wife's parent and grandparent hair colorations. Especially if any were freckled. Often people who are heterozygous for MC1R have freckles.

Your parents showed different levels of the same pigment called eumelanin. You do not convert your phomelanin to eumelanin as your parents do. You carry an allele for the MC1R gene that does not carry out that step.
The reason for blond or brown is how much pigment gets made, lots of pigment means dark hair while only a little leaves the hair blond. This is controlled by other genes, possibly several other genes. Your hair is orange rather than dark red because you make less pigment, like your blond father. This is also recessive so it is likely your mother was heterozygous for blonde (less pigment).
It is also possible to have mixed phomelanin and eumelanin from someone who is converting part of their phomelanin but not all. This produces strawberry blonde through auburn shades depending on how much pigment is made. This is yet another allele for the MC1R gene. In all it is thought there may be up to 7-9 alleles for this gene converting different amounts of pigment.

In addition, there seems to be at least one other gene responsible for red hair. This gene, HCL2, occurs at a higher frequency in some Northern European populations. This gene is also called RHC for red hair color.

Eye color also is not simple. There are at least three genes known to encode eye color. OCA2 is brown/blue, ECL1 is green/blue eye color with brown dominant over blue and green dominant over blue.
Since you and your wife both show brown eyes you are both at least heterozygous for OCA2 and possibly one or both of you are homozygous. Again eye color on or two generations back will help.

Try playing with this site:
http://museum.thetech.org/ugenetics/eyeCalc/eyecalculator.html

Answer 2

It's pretty difficult to predict, because we all carry traits that are expressed (ie you can see them by looking at us), and those that aren't expressed (ie they are in your genes, but you CAN'T tell by looking at you. On top of that, hair color involves multiple genes.
So that means that although she has brown hair, she might also have a gene for red hair (but you can't see it). Do any of her other family members have hair that isn't brown?
As in your case, you father may have been blonde and your mom dark brown, but somewhere hidden were the traits that gave you orange hair.
If her entire family has dark hair, then yes, chances are higher you will have a dark-haired kid. But your grandkids someday might just end up with that orange hair!

Answer 3

Your child won't necessarily have Brown eyes. If you both carry recessive genes, they could be blue.

Same for hair, if there are recessive genes hiding, it could be any color for which colors are showing or hidden in your genes .

Answer 4

You really never know, i came out blonde and both my mom and dad had black hair....yet my grandfather had blonde hair so yea.