Can your genes trace back six generations?

Question

Say like my great great grandfather, my great grand father and my grand mother had grey eyes but none of her kids did. Could my child have grey eyes. Simply saying can one of the recessive traits show up as dominant

Answer 1

It can but its very rare. If you are really interested in this they have many books about it. And a genealogy website.

http://www.genealogy.com/index_n.html

Answer 2

You've probably found that the experts say "many" generations.

There are dominent eye colors and recessive eye colors. Your grandmother with the grey eyes probably married someone with a more dominent color. Her children have a 50/50 shot at carrying the grey recessive eye color and you a .25 change and your children 12.5 unless the father of any of these children also have a grey recessive gene for eyes.

So basicly, yes your children could or their children could, and would help depending on the father's genes.

Answer 3

Generally, most genealogists (with a tiny bit of experience, or help), are easily going to find ancestors back to the late 1700s or early 1800s.  For most of my kid's ancestry.. I have 10-12 generations traced, no problem. However.. with a very few exceptions.. the records I find are not going to contain physical characteristics.  One example of an exception is a muster roll I have from 1812.. it included description of height and blue eyes. This is rare.

Overall speaking... do recessive genes show up, skipping generations? Of course. That is the reason they are called that.  And showing up down the line, is completely normal and common. I just am skeptical of how many records you might find, that provide the documentation of things like eye color.

The one kink that could fit in.. somewhere in past generations, you always MIGHT have a child, whose bio father is not who you think. That is true through history. So, a surprise in such things as eye color can pop out.. but it isn't necessarily something that happened in your known history.  

Answer 4

we tried and tried and tried but we all ways hit a wall

Answer 5

I believe we traced them back to the 1600s or further.

I believe gray eyes are recessive. So, no recessive traits will never show up as dominant  but the percentage of your offspring having them could lean more one way or other.

For example:

parents are rr and DD

kids will be rD, Dr, rr, and DD