General Chat

I was just wondering, curiousity really, does ginger hair really have a central geographic location? You know, like Scots are suppose to be ginger, as are the Irish.....? Chloe

Chloe, Found this on the net thought you might find it interesting The Future Looks Black For Redheads. After centuries of jokes and cruel remarks, redheads may have the last laugh. Natural selection will turn those with ginger hair into an exotic and desirable rarity in the next 100 years. Scientists are warning that racial mingling will reduce the number of people with red hair, consigning the likes of Nicole Kidman, Chris Evans and Charlie Dimmock to history. Blondes are also likely to disappear - although they will linger for slightly longer because there are more of them, according to researchers. The reason, they say, is that people of different races are mixing and inter-marrying at a rate never seen before because of globalisation and migration. Natural blondes and redheads will be prized as never before. Such striking hair colours are already becoming exceptional when seen as part of the global population, said Dr Desmond Tobin, who researches hair cell biology at Bradford University. "As the amount of migration, inter-marriage and mixing increases we will see them all but disappear", he explained. He was speaking at a conference organised by the Oxford Hair Foundation, a research centre, which also heard that although about a third of British women sport blonde hair, most get their colour straight from a bottle. "Only about 3% are naturally blonde", said Tobin. The proportion of redheads is even smaller at about 1% - 2%, except in Ireland and Scotland where it is estimated to be up to 8%. The proportion of both hair colours are already to have declined, particularly over the past 50 years. However, Nicky Clarke, a hair stylist whose clients include redheaded Sarah Ferguson and blonde Denise van Outen, said natural blondes and redheads inspired thousands of his customers to seek similar colours for their own hair. "It would be sad to lose that diversity" he said. Scientists see such changes as evolution at work - but others see the loss of redheads as a step backwards. Quite why humans evolved redhair is considered one of the mysteries of human evolution. Although humans probaly evolved in Africa 1-2million years ago, redhair only appeared once humans settled in Europe - possibly as recently as 20,000 years ago. The genetics of red and blonde hair are also complex. For example, one of the main genes for hair colour has 40 variants - but only about six cause red hair. People must inherit two of these six genes - one from each parent - to have red hair. The chances of this are always small - which is why there are so few redheads. The best chance occurs in stable rural communities with a common ancestry - where people carrying the genes are likely to meet and have children. This is probably how redheads took hold in Scotland and blondes became common in Scandinavia. However, such communities are now rare and face influxes of newcomers - reduces the chance that any two parents will each have the genes needed to produce redhair in their children. In cities, the chances are far smaller. Jonathan Rees, the professor of dermatology at Edinburgh University who discovered the gene for redhair said "Blondeness appears to follow similar patterns of inheritance". In the past, redheads in concentrated communities have thrived. Some researchers suggest that many ancient societies, including the Romans, prized Redheads as mates - meaning that they could choose the fittest partners. However, while blondeness is still prized in western Europe and America, the global trend appears to be moving in a different direction. Tobin said "The genes for redhair could spread in sparsely populated areas like ancient Scandinavia or Britain but now they are simply being swamped." From The Sunday Times : 16.11.03. Article by Jonathan Leake , Science Editor. Emma.

Exotic, desirable............yes I'm all that and more (lol) My dad had brown hair, as did my mum. Never knew my grandad, but apparently he had ginger hair and through G/connected have found his mother's sister - that lady's decendant also has ginger hair (so at least we know where it came from) The milkman had brown hair, or so my Mum said!! Jacqui (or Ginge to her friends and rellies)

before i went grey i had auburn hair and brown eyes, so has one brother, the other has blue eyes and one grandchild has auburn with green eyes, neither parents had red hair although one gt aunt may have, don,t fancy dying out much marcie x

bill praps you can help me then im a very dark brunette with green eyes, where do i originate from lol susie and ive not got one grey hair....yet!!!!

nor do i now susie, bottle blond, prefered being red though much more fun

hiya marcie my aunt is auburn yet dad was blonde. my daughter has got an auburn undertone to her hair,probably because hubby is blonde lol susie

I'm not ginger, but one of my sisters is, and she just had her first child, who's also ginger. I was just wondering because it's only 1 in 50 people (or something like that) if it had any specific location. Apparently my Mum's mum had ginger hair, as did my great grandfather on my dad's side. Grandma was English, G Grandad was German. Thanks for your help people!

In my family (Scottish) it seems to skip a generation. My daughter has red hair, her grandmother and gg grandfather had it too. Regards Margaret

We had neighbours years ago who had thirteen kids! Both parents had black hair. Down the list the kids went girl, boy,girl, boy, girl..etc and black, red, blonde, black, red, blonde... How's that for consistency?

strewth bill, you take your life in your hands saying green eyed woman have fat eyes lol marcie x

Bill in Oz - could you please tell your "expert" that I, of the Ginger Hair and Green Eyes, do not have "fat eyes" - fat everywhere else of course, but not in the eyes - lol Jacqui

bill i really dont know wat to say now lol fat eyes eh! o well i suppose its better than having a fat backside lol could you ask your expert how it occured that 2 of my siblings have blue eyes ,and 1 has brown eyes. mums eyes are green and dads are blue susie

I'm a redhead with blue eyes. My brother is a redhead as well, as is my Dad, but before him, no-one seems to be a redhead. Looks like I'm going to have to marry a redhead to carry the redhair going in the family. The only prob with that is, I dont fancy men with redhair! I know I know I should fancy my own species, but if you can name more than one good looking male redhead then your a better person than me, but unfortunately, most redhead blokes are missing something from the looks department (apologies to my brother, my Dad and any other redhead male reading this!) and people ask me why I'm still single!!!! :-) LOL

My two eldest children have ginger hair and the younger two are fair. I was blonde (now ash blonde - HA HA- white!). My ginger son's daughter is ginger with a brown-haired Mum and my ginger daughter's daughter is dark brown haired with a dark brown haired Dad. When the sun shines on brown haired grandaughter's hair it has red tints. My husband was platinum blond as a child but then his hair darkened to almost black. My maternal grandfather had sandy coloured hair but one of his sister's was dark red. It must come from my side of the family or so Husband says! I have ancestors from Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Canada and England. Also some Hugenots way back. Sue P.S. my milkman WAS ginger LOL

My mother had red hair as did both her parents. My brother sister and I all have brown hair and we all have red headed partners, their children have red hair while mine does not. One aunt with blonde hair married a red head and all five of her children have red hair in varying shades from strawberry blonde to dark auburn. I believe that if you have red headed relations whom you like and get on well with then you are more receptive to an attraction to redheads. My family are mostly Irish origin but have a few other nationalities thrown in the mix. At school in biology class, many moons ago, the eye colour/ hair colour topics would be referred to and I think most people would only know about 8-14 redheads and they would have to give it a lot of thought, I'm sure my count was about a hundred and the first 50 would be named quickly. It was very unusual to be able to do this. Only recently stopped dying my hair red. Siobhan