Chances of darker skin color?

[Sara291]

I had my children via a donor. I know who the donor is and I know many of their biological 1/2 siblings. My daughter has the darkest skin out of the all the children I've seen from this donor. She isn't super dark but very olive and tans like crazy quick. All the other children have olive skin though. My daughter actually looks a tad darker then her biological father but his father is a pretty dark olive Italian. What are the chances of a child having slightly darker skin then their parents?

[prairielad]

It depends on your background and what skin color genes you carry. One can be light skinned but still carry darker skin color genes.

the combination of genes from mother and father determine the skin color, if both contributed only the darker genes child will be darker skinned.

[dna]

It depends on your background and what skin color genes you carry. One can be light skinned but still carry darker skin color genes.

the combination of genes from mother and father determine the skin color, if both contributed only the darker genes child will be darker skinned.

Sara, prairielad just said that somewhere in your genes there is dark olive Italian. It could be from a distant ancestry, but it survived.

Does your MyOrigins show any Italian?

Mr W

[mkdexter]

I have five children, all tested, as are all of their grandparents and my wife. In seeing how all of this flows and works by looking at many family member tests, I can say that I would not worry about a little darker skin in one child. That is a product of DNA recombination. Only one of my children tans darker olive (Mediterranean ethnicity) like me. It drives her sister crazy. Unless this is a very different coloring you are talking about, it just comes down to how DNA recombined.

In terms of can your child have slightly darker skin than her father. Yes. You would have to compare all four grandparents to see where this flowed, or combined from.

[Asper]

In terms of can your child have slightly darker skin than her father. Yes. You would have to compare all four grandparents to see where this flowed, or combined from.

Genetics go much further than grandparents. Recessive genes can be passed down generations without any clue of their presence until they match up with related genes.

Hence why you sometimes hear stories of African-Americans with lily white kids, so-called "WASP" families with darkish skinned relatives, and you know a blonde haired adult among a long line of people who are brunettes or dark haired.

[MoberlyDrake]

Does skin and hair color involve any dominant/recessive genes or is it just a matter of the combination you get from your parents? Just curious, but it may be quite complex.

My Sicilian grandmother passed her dark olive skin to all 5 of her daughters, but not to her son, who had relatively fair skin, but was Italian (Abruzzo area) too. My father's sister married my mother's brother. Each family had 3 children. My siblings and I have fair skin and our cousins have olive skin.

[Asper]

Does skin and hair color involve any dominant/recessive genes or is it just a matter of the combination you get from your parents? Just curious, but it may be quite complex.

My Sicilian grandmother passed her dark olive skin to all 5 of her daughters, but not to her son, who had relatively fair skin, but was Italian (Abruzzo area) too. My father's sister married my mother's brother. Each family had 3 children. My siblings and I have fair skin and our cousins have olive skin.

A close friend of mine his grandmother was lily white skinned. Her two full blooded brothers on the other hand had a constant year round olive complexion and tanned ridiculously in the sun where she burnt. By ridiculously in the old black & white photos if you didn't know who you were looking at you'd think both of them were either mulatto or two very, very dark skinned Mediterranean(s).

That friend has an olive complexion, black hair so dark you'd think he had dyed it, and dark eyes. My friend is easily passable among the local Italians & Mediterranean(s) around here. His own father had some chap run across a busy road when in Portugal because the individual thought his father was a local [while his father's brother looks British, aka pale skin].

My friend's full blooded sister on the other hand is remarkably... well northern European with pale blonde hair, pale grey eyes, and pale skin.


So yeah you can get that difference in families. It all depends on what genes match up.

Let's say you need genes A, N and Y to be dark skinned. Papa has genes N & A so his skin tone is medium toned. Mama has genes N, Y and her skin tone is pale but she doesn't burn in the sun she tans. Kid gets N & A from papa and potentially N & Y from mama ... tada, dark skin.

[MoberlyDrake]

It's been a long time since my school days, but I had the idea that there were more than 3 genes involved in skin color. I have no idea if there is any sex-linkage with any of them. The field of genetics has changed a whole lot too since I was in school, of course!

[Asper]

It's been a long time since my school days, but I had the idea that there were more than 3 genes involved in skin color. I have no idea if there is any sex-linkage with any of them. The field of genetics has changed a whole lot too since I was in school, of course!

Yes, there is more than 3 genes. That example was intentionally simplified.


And I missed part of your original question - yes hair, eye and skin color is related to dominant and recessive genes. Hence why let's say my family, which is predominant dark, brunette or red haired individuals, has a handful of adult blondes because there was recessive "blonde" genes on those people's other parents' side.

[mkdexter]

Genetics go much further than grandparents. Recessive genes can be passed down generations without any clue of their presence until they match up with related genes.

Hence why you sometimes hear stories of African-Americans with lily white kids, so-called "WASP" families with darkish skinned relatives, and you know a blonde haired adult among a long line of people who are brunettes or dark haired.

You didn't understand what I said. I was talking about comparing the BGA/MyOrigin reports of the grandparents. Those are not gene reports, they are SNP based reports.

The SNPs only come from four grandparents; they actually come from two parents but to drop the 2-layered information into single layers, view the grandparents.