Genealogy Chat

do you think height is any indicator of paternity? I ask because my gt grandfather was born the year before his parent's married ( father not named on cert ) looking at photo's of son and 'father' in later life i was struck by the difference in height ( 'father' being noticeably taller) and sort of discounted him as being the natural father because of that... BUT have just found in military records that the brother / half brother born after the marriage was also short.

Any thoughts?

I don't think height is an indicator in itself.

I think other indicators must be taken into consideration like shape of eyes, mouth, nose, jawline and hairline.

Yes, I am very much like my father, not as tall as he was but lot taller than ma and her relatives. I also have 'his' slim build, hands, long fingers and curly hair.
Happy hunting J*

TootyFruity I have peered at that photo lol, the nose and width of the forehead are the same..hard to tell with the ears...they do both have similar eyes in terms of the fleshy bit underneath... I'll never know though lol I must just resign myself to it ;)

~~~ J*

I am very like my mum, except she was much prettier :)

No, no, no. My husband is quite tall, my son is quite short. Believe me my husband is the father of my son!

I don`t believe anyone gets all their charecteristics from just their 2 parents.

I think we all get things from grandparents, aunties ,uncles even Cousins etc as well.

Example i have blue eyes, neither of my parents or my sister have blue eyes, but my mothers brother does, everyone has always said i get my Blue eyes from him...

I v`e luckily passed them on to all my 3 daughters, and my first grandchild is also Blue eyed.


Nicky

My Dad was the spitting image of his father, but about 3 inches shorter. His father was reasonably tall, his mother was less than 5 foot. He took his height from his mother's side.

Ozi

I was quite dissapointed to have two blue eyed children when I have dark brown eyes.

Think I need a DNA test to see if I am their mother lol

jax

thats funny Jax.......Science will tell you that Brown dominates Blue because its the darker colour/pigment....

But I know a lot of people with blue eyes who have had Blue eyed children despite the father/partner being another colour, me being one of them.


There must be a strong blue eyed gene somewhere in yours or your partner/husbands family Jax.


Nicky

apparently two blue eyed parents can only have blue eyed children!!!

Blue is a recessive gene and we all have two eye colour genes, of which we pass on one pair to our children, the other coming from our partner. So a brown eyed person could actually have a blue+brown pair of genes and would have brown eyes themselves. Their partner could have blue+blue and be blue eyed or could have brown+blue and be brown eyed too. Each parent could pass on their own blue eyed gene copy and the child would be blue+blue and have blue eyes. Or if the brown eyed partner passes on their brown gene and the blue eyed partner the blue one (obviously!) then the child would be blue+brown and show brown eyes.

In other words two brown eyed people can have a blue eyed child but two blue eyed people can't have a brown eyed child. (This is a very simplistic explanation and isn't necessarily strictly true in all possible scenarios as eye colour is hugely complicated genetically, especially when you get to green and hazel geneotypes. But it holds true 99% of the time)

Kate x

Thanks Kate...thats sort of what I was trying to say.....funny that 2 blue eyed parents can only have a blue eyed child, not Brown, but 2 brown eyed parents can have a blue eyed or different coloured eyed child....... in other words Blue is definetly the dominant Gene...or "Recessive" as Science would call it....


Either way i think all this answers Roses original question about the height......we really do get our charecteristics from many different members of our blood line including height.



Nicky

I recently received a photo from someone on genes of their branch of the family which showed a young woman who looked like me at her age. I haven't any female cousins and don't particularly look like my parents.

Trying to work out the relationship I think I would be a fourth cousin, once removed as this girl's gt grandfather was my gt gt grandfather.

When I showed the photo to my husband, who met me when I was nineteen, he immediately said that she looked like me so I think family likenesses can crop up at anytime. In this case over seventy years later.

Jax

Both my Parents are Brown eyed my Brother & Sister are Brown eyed too

Me now......the tops of me eyes are Green & the bottoms are Blue

I recall years ago looking at a sepia photograph on the wall of a great aunt's house - it was a girl on a swing and I immediately thought "That's me!!!" but how could it be, I didn't have clothes like that!!! turned out it was an elder sister of my Dad's

Strange thing was that in adult life we bore no resemblance to each other whatsoever

with regard to physical likenesses - my hands and knees are identical to my Dad's along with my curly hair, but the rest of me is definitely my Mum

I have a picture of my mum aged about 6 at school and she is 'me' at that age ... I have grey eyes but they turn really green when I am ill...no idea why or how that happens?

i just wish I'd inherited my height from my Irish side ...the men were all well over 6ft and the women over 5 10 ish :)

thankyou all for the interesting replies :))

I inherited my father's square jaw and straight hair and sadly also inherited my mother's wide hips!! If only we could pick and choose

When my son was born he was the spitting image of his dad was when he was born.

Now he looks more like me, poor lad:)

I have a friend who is beautifully willowy, quite model-like. She married a strapping rugby player.

You guessed it! Her daughter takes after her dad, and her son after herself. Although both good looking young adults they do bemoan their pick of the genes.

Ozi