Are You Carrying the Redhead Gene Ginger Gene DNA

Table Of Content

• After Delays, Dr. Umar Johnson ‘Finally’ Sets An Opening Date For His School For Black Boys
• How Common Are People with Red Hair and Blue Eyes?
• Redhead Days: where does red hair actually come from?
• Give Mum The Gift of Glam this Mother's Day With These Covetable Beauty Products
• OJ Simpson Says Ex-Wife Nicole Brown Simpson’s Mother Has Died: ‘God Bless Her Family’

Once again, they regarded redheads, as untrustworthy- yet red hair was also desirable, as many Roman ladies aspired to it, prompting Roman wig makers to import quantities of red hair from northern Europe. “Hence, too, the same physical peculiarities throughout so vast a population. While redheads are born all throughout the world, they’re more likely to crop up in the Northern hemisphere. Though about 1-2% of the general world population has the red hair gene, that percentage rises to 2 to 6 percent north of the equator. You might believe that because these genetic traits are rare, they could be diluted out of the gene pool entirely.

After Delays, Dr. Umar Johnson ‘Finally’ Sets An Opening Date For His School For Black Boys

What is immediately apparent to genetic genealogists is that the map of red hair correlates with the frequency of haplogroup R1b in northern and western Europe. It doesn't really correlate with the percentage of R1b in southern Europe, for the simple reason that red hair is more visible among people carrying various other genes involved in light skin and hair pigmentation. Mediterranean people have considerably darker pigmentations (higher eumelanin), especially as far as hair is considered, giving the red hair alleles little opportunity to express themselves. The reddish tinge is always concealed by black hair, and rarely visible in dark brown hair. Rufosity being recessive, it can easily stay hidden if the alleles are too dispersed in the gene pool, and that the chances of both parents carrying an allele becomes too low.

How Common Are People with Red Hair and Blue Eyes?

The MC1R gene found on chromosome 16 plays a critical role in the process of melanin synthesis by melanocytes. The MC1R gene provides instruction for the formation of a protein known as the melanocortin 1 receptor, which are present on the surface of melanocytes. Even as far back as Neolithic times, the 45th parallel roughly divided the Mediterranean Cardium Pottery culture from the Central European Linear Pottery culture. Superstar actress Nicole Kidman is perhaps Australia’s best known redhead, while British model Alexina Graham became the first ever ginger beauty to walk the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show in 2018. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes story "The Red-Headed League" (1891) involves a man who is asked to become a member of a mysterious group of red-headed people.

Redhead Days: where does red hair actually come from?

This fact not only rules out interbreeding as a route for Homo sapiens red hair, but it also rules out early Europe, as it’s the birthplace. You can, of course, see whether there is anyone with red hair in your family. However, even if this has not been the case for generations, it is still possible that you carry a (recessively inherited) red-hair gene. There are theories that the pale skin with which red hair is often paired was favourable from an evolutionary point of view in less sunny areas. This is because pale skin still produces sufficient vitamin D when there is little sunlight.

According to historical records, there are more redheads in the Volga region in Russia than anywhere else in the world. The men around this region have been described to have the most red hair in the rest of the world. All of these red-haired tribes match the genetic makeup of the current inhabitants of the lands they occupied. Scotland, Wales and Ireland respectively- the British Celtic nations- all having the high level of red gene carriers and manifestations. On mainland Europe, Brittany, the border between France and Belgium, Switzerland, and Jutland – the ancestral lands of the Gaulish and Germanic tribes- also carry high levels of the red-haired gene.

The study – which also sheds light on blondes and brunettes – is the largest genetic study of hair colour to date. Blue eye colour is a recessive trait, which means both parents must carry the gene for the child to be born with it. As previously mentioned, ginger hair occurs naturally in an average of just two percent of the world’s population, while only 17 percent of humans have blue eyes.

Researchers discover genetic link to red hair

There are more than seventy known variants of the MC1R gene that can influence your hair colour. This means that you will only get a red hair colour if two ‘alleles’ of the gene are present that suppress eumelanin production. It is therefore possible for two people, neither of whom has red hair but who both carry this gene, to unexpectedly have a child with red hair.

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Hair Color Tips and Tricks - Dyeing Your Hair Red - Red Hair Color Maintenance - Fall Hair Color.

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Scientists believe that the distinct gene mutation is more common in climates where there is little to no harmful sun exposure. Red hair is a recessive genetic trait caused by a series of mutations in the melanocortin 1 receptor (MC1R), a gene located on chromosome 16. As a recessive trait it must be inherited from both parents to cause the hair to become red. Consequently there are far more people carrying the mutation for red hair than people actually having red hair. In Scotland, approximately 13% of the population are redheads, although 40% carry at least one mutation.

In species other than primates, red hair has different genetic origins and mechanisms. Erik Thorvaldsson, famously known as Erik the Red, is the Viking who was known for his spectacular red hair. Erik wasn’t just a sporadic seafarer, but he also founded the first European settlement in present-day Greenland. He got his byname Erik the Red in his youth when he decided to travel after being exited from Iceland. What Vikings looked like is one of the biggest misconceptions that you’ll come across.

23andMe’s Health + Ancestry Service can tell you more about the genetic roots of your hair color. People who have certain variants in this gene are more likely to have red hair because they have higher levels of pheomelanin. The Italic branch crossed the Alps around 1300 BCE and settled across most of the peninsula, but especially in Central Italy (Umbrians, Latins, Oscans). It is likely that the original Italics had just as much red hair as the Celts and Germans, but lost them progressively as they intermarried with their dark-haired neighbours, like the Etruscans. The subsequent Gaulish Celtic settlements in northern Italy increased the rufosity in areas that had priorly been non-Indo-European (Ligurian, Etruscan, Rhaetic) and therefore dark-haired.

However, a majority of the pheomelanin-rich population live in the northern hemisphere, where the sun is not as harsh as in the equatorial region. Because the population does not face the wrath of the burning rays of the sun, their body doesn’t require a large amount of eumelanin pigment. When the MC1R gene is activated, the cell will have more MC1 receptors, which will cause your melanocytes to produce more eumelanin and give you a darker hair  color. Now researchers at the University of Edinburgh have looked at DNA from almost 350,000 people who had taken part in the UK Biobank study. The study, which was led by The Roslin Institute and the MRC Human Genetics Unit, focused on people of European descent because they have greater variation in hair colour.

The thing is, there were already red haired individuals way before the Vikings era. Scientific evidence points towards red haired people around the period that Celtic and Germanic tribes thrived. One can argue that the genetic disposition for red hair was already among the population. The Classical suspicion of redheads probably derived from the fact red hair was so rare in the Mediterranean regions.

As we look through history, we find that henna has also been used since ancient times to create red hair and was very popular in Ancient Egypt and in the Middle East. In Elizabethan England, red hair was very popular, owing to Elizabeth I’s natural red hair, and many men and women colored their hair red to show loyalty. In the 16th century, the popularity of Tiziano Vecelli, as he was known in English, Titian’s art started a trend for red hair, too, with Italian women using ingredients, including saffron and rhubarb, to achieve the color. There are variants of this unique gene, and the more variants there are, the most likely it is that you’ll have red hair. Since hair color is also determined by melanin, it means that the lower your levels of melanin, you’re prone to higher levels of pheomelanin which is a red or yellow pigment. When these levels are higher, then you have higher chances of having red hair.

From the assumptions about Norsemen having beards, you can assume that the ones who lived in areas where you find red hair genes dominant would, consequently, have had red beards. From 27 to 29 August redheads from around the world will be gathering again in Tilburg for Redhead Days, an annual international event that celebrates red hair. And can you pass red hair on to your children even if you do not have red hair yourself?

After nearly a millennium in the Danubian basin (as far west as Bavaria), they would continue their westward expansion (from 2500 BCE) to Western Europe. In fact, the westward expansion was most likely carried out exclusively by the westernmost faction of R1b, who had settled north of the Alps, around Austria and Bavaria, and developed the Unetice culture. Almost all trace of red hair was lost in south-eastern Europe due to the high number of dark haired people brought by the long wave of invasions to the region over the last 5000 years. According to ancient Greek writers, red hair was common among the Thracians, who lived around modern Bulgaria, an region where rufosity has almost completely disappeared today. Red hair alleles may have survived in the local gene pool though, but cannot be expressed due to the lack of other genes for light hair pigmentation. You must inherit two sets of genetic information for both your hair color and your eye color to have these less-common characteristics.