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Specifically, I have relatives who are very mixed. They are cousins. Since they had 6 kids, it is easy to compare. Two seem very Scandinavian. They even gravitate towards that culture more and they look Scandinavian. One seems more Scotch Irish. And the other three gravitate and look more like their French-Italian ancestry on their father's side (my uncle by marriage)
This is only one example. I have seen it in other families.
Yes, although you inherit 50% from each parent, you do not necessarily inherit exactly 25% of your DNA from each grandparent. The further back you go, the more varied the amounts you might inherit from one ancestor or another.
However, that does not necessarily reflect in appearance. For example, my mom is Norwegian, German, and British, but she has dark hair, dark eyes, and tans easily. Try not to get hung up on appearance stereotypes.
My 3 grandchildren are each different from each other. The first born boy has a very balanced body, his sister is a thin, sized zero, and the third boy is quite husky. There are a lot of tall skinny Swedes on one side, and small, thin Poles on the other side, and their fathers family is regular sized German.
I give up trying to figure out who got what traits from where. After the genetic mix gets to a certain point, it becomes hard to pin a trait on any relative.
I am half and half, and my husband is only English, so we both can easily see where we got our physical traits from.
Yes, although you inherit 50% from each parent, you do not necessarily inherit exactly 25% of your DNA from each grandparent. The further back you go, the more varied the amounts you might inherit from one ancestor or another.
However, that does not necessarily reflect in appearance. For example, my mom is Norwegian, German, and British, but she has dark hair, dark eyes, and tans easily. Try not to get hung up on appearance stereotypes.
So anyone can inherit more DNA from one grandparent? Since appearance is not a reliable indicator, is a DNA test the only way to find out?
Why would one ethnicity overtake another? I mean other than dominant genes. What is the best place to find out how this has been distributed?
In my family, I am tall and lanky - like the Swedish part, but with brown hair, green eyes,(more Swedish) and skin that tans easily - like the Scots Irish part. I have a brother who is medium height and a little stocky - like the Scots Irish - with brown hair and lt brown eyes. A sister who is tall and slender - with dark hair and eyes, and a sister who is tall and fuller figured with red hair and dark brown eyes.
The red haired sister looks the most Scandinavian to me but her eyes are very dark like my mother's - who says she is "black Irish".
Mt grandfather also indicated that we were British.
Depends on many things, such as if you're male or female, and follow the side of your gender family.
Example: the sex is determined by the male, but twins follow the female line.
We have three sets of twins in three generations, but they're all on the female line.
The intangibles are pretty scary: My 2nd. lady cousin on my opposite mom's side not only looks just like my sister, has hair just like her, but in conversation SOUNDS LIKE HER. WTF? She's never met her as my sister was lost to us before my cousin was ever born.
So anyone can inherit more DNA from one grandparent? Since appearance is not a reliable indicator, is a DNA test the only way to find out?
Yes, but to be clear, the only reliable way to measure how much DNA you got from a particular grandparent is to have both yourself and that grandparent tested and see how much DNA you share. The ethnicity percentages aren't a reliable indicator because they are only an estimate and there's no DNA which is 100% unique to one region. So if you were thinking of doing a DNA test knowing that you had one Norwegian grandparents, for example, that doesn't the percentage of Scandinavian is an accurate measure of how much DNA you got from that grandparent.
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Why would one ethnicity overtake another? I mean other than dominant genes. What is the best place to find out how this has been distributed?
It's not a matter of on ethnicity overtaking another, or dominant genes. It's just recombination. You can get, for example, about 18% from one grandparent instead of the 25% you might expect on paper... but your appearance could still predominately favor that grandparent because the 18% you did get from them was more dominant. However, having said that - how gene influence appearance is very complex, I don't fully understand it but it's more complex than simple dominant and recessive.
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