My husband and I are taking a college biology class together. We're starting to get in to genetics, making me curious as to what our children might look like.

I have brown hair and brown eyes; my mom has black hair and brown eyes; and my dad has brown hair and blue eyes.

My husband has brown hair and hazel eyes; his mom has blonde hair and blue eyes; and his dad has red hair and brown eyes.

I realized that his parents both have recessive hair colors, making me think it's unusual that he has brown hair.

There are other features that we've noticed that aren't similar to his dad, which is unfortunately raising the question, is he really his father?

So, is it possible for his red-haired father and blonde-haired mother to have a brown-haired child?

Just to let you know, my husband has ashy brown hair color, while his father has red to dark red hair.

Does he look like him?

Take it back another generation and imagine how the genetics might have worked to get recessive characteristics out in his generation.

Sure it is possible.

Hello nicki:

A few weeks into your class, you'll learn that certain characteristics are dominant over others. For example, brown eyes are dominant over blue. There's a lot more to it than that, as I'm reaching back some 40 years, and I'm sure they know even more about it today.

Plus, dominant doesn't mean absolute. If it did, we wouldn't have evolved.

excon

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Originally Posted by nickipearl

So, is it possible for his red-haired father and blonde-haired mother to have a brown-haired child?

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All of the details involved in the inheritance of hair color haven’t been worked out yet, but you can get a brown hair in a child using just two hair color genes. See Human hair color - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. In this model there is 1 gene responsible for brown/blonde hair color with brown dominant over blonde. The second gene would determine red hair color with “not red” dominant over red. The 2 genes would interact (called epistasis) such that a “not red” trait (allele) is needed in order for the hair color to be blonde, brown or black.

So the red haired Dad could be carry the brown hair trait (allele) but have red hair color because he has only “red” alleles (this is called homozygous in genetics) at the second gene.
Mom would only need to pass on a “not red” allele at the second gene.

So where does black hair fit in? In this model the brown/blond gene has many alleles which are responsible for different shades of brown to black. This explanation “fits” and In my opinion it is a reasonable theory … is it right? I don’t know, but I would expect that it is “right”, but oversimplified. Other genes certainly influence hair color. Hair color is determined by more than one gene (=polygenic) & the final color is subject to the influence of modifying genes & the environment. For example I had blonde hair as a kid, brown as an adult & now gray ;(
Not an intelligent design, but this is what you get when traits evolve.