Is there a way to determine what genes take over? ?

Question

We are have a girl

I have brown hair / green eyes / small lips

He has brown hair / brown eyes / dimples / big lips

And ideas?

Answer 1

You would need some more information to know for sure, but in general:

Brown hair is dominant (takes over) - Lets call the allele for brown hair "B" and for blonde hair "b"

Brown eyes are dominant to green - Lets call the allele for brown eyes "E" and for green "e"

Dimples are dominant - Lets call the allele for dimples "D" and for no dimples "d"

I'm not sure about lip size but I'm guess it's polygenic, meaning that that trait is determined by multiple genes, not just one "winning" over another. (So I'm guess it will probably be medium lips)

So, here is the part where it would be good to know some more, like what your parents/family look like. I'm going to assume that both families have a mix of dominant and recessive traits (i.e. your mom has blond hair with blue eyes and your dad has brown hair and eyes). This would mean that you each are heterozygous (have two different alleles for each gene). So you would have these genes: Bb ee dd and your husband would have Bb Ee and Dd. So your child has:

75% chance of brown hair

75% of green eyes

25% chance of dimples

If either of you are homozygous for either dominant trait then your child will have that trait. (ie if everyone in your family has brown hair then you are most likely homozygous dominant for brown hair and all your children will have brown hair).

Hope this helps!