Where does her red hair come from? We’ve been asked this question about 8 bajillion times since Stella was born in 2011. I know bajillion isn’t a word, but for years, it was the second question I was asked after “How are you?”
Strangers stop us and admire her hair and ask “Where does the red hair come from?”. They would touch her without asking because they hadn’t “seen such a beautiful color hair before.” I am blonde, my son is blonde, my siblings are blonde, my nephews are blonde, my husband has brown hair, my parents were blonde, my in-laws all have brown hair. Where does the red come from?
A quick google search for “Where does red hair come from?” informs me that:
“Contrary to what many people assume, redheads did not originate in Scandinavia, Scotland or Ireland, but in central Asia*. Their coloring is due to a mutation in the MC1R gene that fails to produce sun-protective, skin-darkening eumelanin and instead causes pale skin, freckles and red hair.”
So armed with these facts, one of my responses has been to shrug my shoulders and say, “Science”. But that felt kind of boring and sometimes rude, so I would often follow up with a few more specific answers.
Another search tells me that red hair is a recessive trait (4% of the world population) and must be in both parents DNA. Red hair and blue eyes are even rarer (1% of the world population) and that redheads have a high threshold of pain. That explains why she never cries when she gets vaccines or blood draws, it’s in her DNA.
We know where the red hair is in my husband’s family, so much to people’s chagrin, the husband and father of this infamous redhead has it in his family. Seth’s aunt has red hair and their children have red hair. He also has some cousins on his dad’s side with red hair (one of which Stella was named after, Robin).
Where is it on my side? My mom’s mom, Grandma Ede, would whisper to me that my grandfather had red hair under his arms. That was another answer I gave to the curious. I’d even say it in a whisper like Grandma, “Red hair has to be on both sides and we know where it is on my husband’s side, his mom’s sister with red hair and red head kids. I’ve heard on my side that my Grandfather had red hair under his arms so that’s probably it. Oh, and my dad was adopted at birth and was always blonde, so it could be on his side too.”
If those answers didn’t satisfy the curiosity of the person asking, they would make crass comments like she wasn’t my husband’s child because my husband doesn’t have red hair. Nudge, nudge wink wink, it’s probably the mailman’s…I love that one because it is so f’ing rude and completely stupid! Let’s begin with the fact that the only place we know if it exists, is on HIS SIDE. What if she isn’t his? Maybe she isn’t and we know it already and it is really painful to talk about. It’s completely possible that we had trouble conceiving so we had a sperm or egg donor. A decision like that would have meant great struggle, possible loss and a lot of medical intervention. Not to mention that part of the real answer is painful, I’m not sure where it is on MY side because my dad is adopted and doesn’t want to know who his birth family is.
Underarm hair was a good enough answer for me for quite a while. For Hanukkah 2016, my father-in-law wanted an Ancestry DNA kit as a gift, so I bought one for me too because maybe I can find out where the red hair comes from.
*Had to look up Central Asia, the Wiki says: Central Asia stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to China in the east and from Afghanistan in the south to Russia in the north. It is also colloquially referred to as “the stans” as the countries generally considered to be within the region all have names ending with the Persian suffix “-stan“, meaning “land of”. From the mid-19th century until almost the end of the 20th century, most of Central Asia was part of the Russian Empire and later the Soviet Union, both Slavic-majority countries, and the five former Soviet “-stans” are still home to about 7 million ethnic Russians and 500,000 Ukrainians.
Redhead News:
Where Does That Red Hair Come From? 