• Question: what makes people ginger

    Asked by to Mo Rassul, Krishna, John, Del, Catherine on 17 Mar 2014. This question was also asked by .
    • Photo: Catherine Mansfield

      Catherine Mansfield answered on 17 Mar 2014:


      Our hair colour is determined by genes in our DNA, therefore it is inherited from our parents.
      Ginger hair is a recessive feature meaning if you have ginger hair your parents hair doesn’t have to be ginger, they may just be carriers of the gene for it.

    • Photo: Adelle Thrower

      Adelle Thrower answered on 17 Mar 2014:


      when we get our genes from our parents we recieve two of everything. one is called dominant gene one is recessive. we need two dominant genes or one dominant with a recessive to make that colour. ginger is a recessive gene so people have to have two recessive genes to become giner. this means that their parents although might not themselves be ginger both carry the recessive ginger gene.

    • Photo: John Foster

      John Foster answered on 17 Mar 2014:


      There is a gene in the body called “Melanocortin 1 receptor” that helps regulates hair and skin colour. There are alternative forms of this gene (called alleles) that are responsible for Red hair colour and paler skin tone.

      The alternative genes are “recessive”, this means that if one of your parents have the gene for red hair but the other has one for brown hair the because brown hair is dominant you will have brown coloured hair. You need both parents to have red hair for the child to have red hair.

    • Photo: Krishna Mohan Surapaneni

      Krishna Mohan Surapaneni answered on 18 Mar 2014:


      If the parents carry a gene called – MC1R gene (called as ginger gene) which causes redheadedness. It can be inherited to offsprings also.

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