Hi, thanks for coming to
answer. I really hope this doesnt sound dumb coming from a 16 year old who should know about these things, but I was wondering about how traits, physical, would work,if I ever had children.
Say I marry and have children with a Caucasian man, and I myself have naturally tan skin; I'm Colombian. What would my children with the man look like? How does that work with our genetics and skin types? What would the kids skin color be?
Or say I have kids with another Hispanic generally-tan skinned man, what would our children look like? How does that work? Remember I have tan skin, a light bronzish brown, obviously Hispanic, or maybe find out what skin color Colombians generally have, and answer please.
I know it sounds silly from someone my age, I don't remeber too much of this, but I've always wanted to know what my children would look like depending on what race of man I had a child with. Thank you for answering!
answer. I really hope this doesnt sound dumb coming from a 16 year old who should know about these things, but I was wondering about how traits, physical, would work,if I ever had children.
Say I marry and have children with a Caucasian man, and I myself have naturally tan skin; I'm Colombian. What would my children with the man look like? How does that work with our genetics and skin types? What would the kids skin color be?
Or say I have kids with another Hispanic generally-tan skinned man, what would our children look like? How does that work? Remember I have tan skin, a light bronzish brown, obviously Hispanic, or maybe find out what skin color Colombians generally have, and answer please.
I know it sounds silly from someone my age, I don't remeber too much of this, but I've always wanted to know what my children would look like depending on what race of man I had a child with. Thank you for answering!
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Skin colour is a complex trait with more than one gene involved - it is called a polygenic trait.
The simplest model for a polygenic trait is this - say that you have 3 genes controlling skin colour (in reality there are more). We give each allele that a person carries a score, from 1-5, where every 1 allele is at the lighter end of the scale and 5 is the darker end.
Perhaps you would have a score of 1,4, 2,2 , 2,3 for example = 14, which would be the darkness of your skin in some way we could measure. There are 3 genes and you have 2 copies of each - one inherited from each parent. You will only give half of your alleles to your children - at the lowest end you would pass on 1,2,2 = 5 and then at the highest end 4, 2,3 = 9, so what you pass on to your children is very variable.
The father of your children, will also have a variable genotype, so he could pass on a combination of very low, medium or a higher end set, no matter what score he himself has.
The result is that any child could be quite different from their parents, much lighter or darker than one or other - or somewhere between the two. One of the joys of children is that they are all unique.
The simplest model for a polygenic trait is this - say that you have 3 genes controlling skin colour (in reality there are more). We give each allele that a person carries a score, from 1-5, where every 1 allele is at the lighter end of the scale and 5 is the darker end.
Perhaps you would have a score of 1,4, 2,2 , 2,3 for example = 14, which would be the darkness of your skin in some way we could measure. There are 3 genes and you have 2 copies of each - one inherited from each parent. You will only give half of your alleles to your children - at the lowest end you would pass on 1,2,2 = 5 and then at the highest end 4, 2,3 = 9, so what you pass on to your children is very variable.
The father of your children, will also have a variable genotype, so he could pass on a combination of very low, medium or a higher end set, no matter what score he himself has.
The result is that any child could be quite different from their parents, much lighter or darker than one or other - or somewhere between the two. One of the joys of children is that they are all unique.