If both parents are ginger,
their offspring would be ginger. Reason: We inherit half our chromosomes from
our father (23) and half from our mother (23), 46 in total. If both parents
passed on a ginger ‘infected’ hair colour chromosome, the child would be
ginger.
If one parent passed on a
non-ginger chromosome, and the other a ginger chromosome, the child would be
non-ginger, since everything other than ginger is dominant over the ginger.
Ginger is a recessive trait.
With no dominant trait present in either parent, they can only pass on the
recessive ginger trait to their offspring.
How non-gingers often end up
producing gingers: For example – two black-haired parents give birth to a ginger
child. How? Both parents have to be carriers of a ginger ‘infected’ chromosome.
They have one ginger and one black each. The black would dominate the ginger,
making them have black hair.
Neither would realize this, as
all they would know is that their hair is black. They could both pass on the
black, which would produce a black-haired child, one could pass black and one
ginger, also a black-haired child, but if both passed on their ginger, the
child would be ginger.
If one parent is ginger, but
the other has no ginger gene, then their offspring would never be ginger, although
all would carry the gene.
