Rutherford B. Hayes

[TinCan]

Really excellent work, looking forward to seeing more.

 

[Stony]

Thanks for sharing. Nice work.

 

[DJenne]

Thank you!!

 

[Private Watkins]

Wonderful work!!! Thank you for sharing this, very cool...

 

[sflickinger]

Very nice. According to this though, Hayes eyes were blue. I have done some research (and I believe @Zuzah has as well) that shows blue eyes was most common in 19th century and that brown did not become dominant until the 20th century.

Very disappointing. I notice that no presidents had green eyes. I do, so I guess my presidential ambitions are over. I should probably put away those campaign signs I had made.

 

[DJenne]

Very disappointing. I notice that no presidents had green eyes. I do, so I guess my presidential ambitions are over. I should probably put away those campaign signs I had made.

So do I!!!!!!

 

[civilwarincolor]

Very disappointing. I notice that no presidents had green eyes. I do, so I guess my presidential ambitions are over. I should probably put away those campaign signs I had made.

So do I!!!!!!

Quite the contrary, I think it would make you stand out from all your predecessors!

 

[hanna260]

Love the picture, DJenne. You did a fabulous job on it.

I have to admit- I love the name Rutherford B. Hayes. Rutherford. That is just an incredible name. They don't make 'em like they used to!

 

[ole]

The recessive gene is devious. Both parents came from a long line of solid Norwegian heritage. Both had light colored eyes. But I and baby sis have dark brown eyes.

 

[18thVirginia]

My heritage is almost all English and a little Northern Europe and brown eyes/brown were so dominant in the family that even marriage to Scandinavians seemed to result in brown eyed children.

 

[DJenne]

Love the picture, DJenne. You did a fabulous job on it.

I have to admit- I love the name Rutherford B. Hayes. Rutherford. That is just an incredible name. They don't make 'em like they used to!

Thank you!!! I love his name too!!!

The recessive gene is devious. Both parents came from a long line of solid Norwegian heritage. Both had light colored eyes. But I and baby sis have dark brown eyes.

And mine are the exact opposite...both parents dark brown everything, with some Eastern European thrown in and I still got green eyes and blond hair...NOT that I'm complaining mind you..but I didn't look like my parents AT all as a kid. Pretty funny. I think my avatar, my mother's mother, was the last to be 'fair' in our family.

 

[sflickinger]

So do I!!!!!!

You better get going! You could represent two firsts: a woman president and a green-eyed one.

 

[Greg Taylor]

I have heard that some who say they are experts on the subject expect blue eyes and blond hair to die out almost completely in a few generations. Not sure about that myself - recessive genes are still there. What I have had trouble grasping is my great grandfather's situation - he was brown-eyed, while his father and his father's wife (supposedly his mother) were both blue-eyed (but then again his father had a reputation for having children by women he wasn't married too and then ending up raising the children, and family lore has it that his father's wife was not his mother, but that was all CW era, so who knows?).

Red hair is also a recessive gene that seems to be dying out. My brother and several other of my relatively recent descendants are/were redheads. I guess this shouldn't be surprising. I read just yesterday that in this country those of European ancestry are dying faster that they are being born. In Europe the replacement rate is even less.

 

[Allie]

I have heard that some who say they are experts on the subject expect blue eyes and blond hair to die out almost completely in a few generations. Not sure about that myself - recessive genes are still there. What I have had trouble grasping is my great grandfather's situation - he was brown-eyed, while his father and his father's wife (supposedly his mother) were both blue-eyed (but then again his father had a reputation for having children by women he wasn't married too and then ending up raising the children, and family lore has it that his father's wife was not his mother, but that was all CW era, so who knows?).

Well... As I'm sure you know already, it's not possible for two blue eyed people to have a brown eyed child without a genetic mutation, which seems unlikely. But if one parent had "blue" eyes which were really a case of partial dominance - one blue and one brown gene complicated by other genes - the eyes might appear gray or green and just be called blue because that was the primary effect. Then the child could receive the brown gene, but not the other genes causing partial dominance, and end up with brown eyes.

If there's also a family rumor that his mother was not his biological mother, I'd say it's a good bet. If anyone cares enough, you could look into DNA matching.

 

[Rob9641]

Well... As I'm sure you know already, it's not possible for two blue eyed people to have a brown eyed child without a genetic mutation, which seems unlikely. But if one parent had "blue" eyes which were really a case of partial dominance - one blue and one brown gene complicated by other genes - the eyes might appear gray or green and just be called blue because that was the primary effect. Then the child could receive the brown gene, but not the other genes causing partial dominance, and end up with brown eyes.

If there's also a family rumor that his mother was not his biological mother, I'd say it's a good bet. If anyone cares enough, you could look into DNA matching.

I checked with a geneticist once and he said eye color is quite complicated and even tho it would be very rare, two blue-eyed people could have a brown-eyed child. The family rumor about his father's wife not being his mother has been pretty solid, even to the point that on my great grandfather's death certificate his mother is listed as "unknown." Heaven only knows because the records don't exist - there is only word of mouth and my great great grandfather's well-known reputation for philandering, which is documented.

 

[Allie]

I checked with a geneticist once and he said eye color is quite complicated and even tho it would be very rare, two blue-eyed people could have a brown-eyed child. The family rumor about his father's wife not being his mother has been pretty solid, even to the point that on my great grandfather's death certificate his mother is listed as "unknown." Heaven only knows because the records don't exist - there is only word of mouth and my great great grandfather's well-known reputation for philandering, which is documented.

This sounded wrong to me so I looked it up and you are absolutely right! The information we have now about the subject is different from what I was taught in school. It's a very complicated subject, but it's explained here:

http://genetics.thetech.org/how-blue-eyed-parents-can-have-brown-eyed-children

 

[Rob9641]

This sounded wrong to me so I looked it up and you are absolutely right! The information we have now about the subject is different from what I was taught in school. It's a very complicated subject, but it's explained here:

http://genetics.thetech.org/how-blue-eyed-parents-can-have-brown-eyed-children

Thanks. My head is now spinning from trying to understand all that. I wonder something else, tho, and that is that my great grandfather was also fairly dark-skinned while his father and his father's wife were not. The dark skin made it through my grandfather and my mother, but I got fair skin, even fairer than either of my parents. Well, this is way beyond the scope of this thread, so let's let it go.

 

[W. Richardson]

Nice work DJenn ! Thank you for sharing it.

Respectfully,
William

 

[ole]

Well... As I'm sure you know already, it's not possible for two blue eyed people to have a brown eyed child without a genetic mutation, which seems unlikely. But if one parent had "blue" eyes which were really a case of partial dominance - one blue and one brown gene complicated by other genes - the eyes might appear gray or green and just be called blue because that was the primary effect. Then the child could receive the brown gene, but not the other genes causing partial dominance, and end up with brown eyes.

If there's also a family rumor that his mother was not his biological mother, I'd say it's a good bet. If anyone cares enough, you could look into DNA matching.

Objection. My parents were blue-eyed, well The Dad tended toward green. Two out of seven of us were dark brown. So, from personal experience, that is wrong.

On another note, seems I remember reading that the brown is the dominant gene.

Again, I am 100 percent of Norwegian descent. Not one of us was blonde and blue-eyed except one niece. I was white haired as an infant, (unfortunately, I have become white-haired) but that changed. Genes are devious things. Kinda puts the lie to the idea that most Norskes are blond and blue-eyed.

I'm the cute one. Picture circa 1945.

 

[Allie]

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Objection. My parents were blue-eyed, well The Dad tended toward green. Two out of seven of us were dark brown. So, from personal experience, that is wrong.

On another note, seems I remember reading that the brown is the dominant gene.

Again, I am 100 percent of Norwegian descent. Not one of us was blonde and blue-eyed except one niece. I was white haired as an infant, (unfortunately, I have become white-haired) but that changed. Genes are devious things. Kinda puts the lie to the idea that most Norskes are blond and blue-eyed.

I'm the cute one. Picture circa 1945.

Ole, you missed my subsequent post in which I acknowledged being wrong. What I learned in school on this subject was based on information that has since turned out to be incomplete. Brown eyes are indeed dominant over blue - but there is not just a single blue versus brown gene determining eye color. There are two sets of genes, either one of which can cause blue eyes. If one parent has the one type of blue eyes, and the other has another type, they can have children with brown. This happens very rarely for even more complicated reasons having to do with where the genes are located on the chromosome, but it can and in your family's case obviously did happen.

Unless you and your sister both really look like the milkman. (Joking!)

Edit: although if your dad tended towards green, it's even more likely that he had a color gene lurking in his DNA and was not genetically blue eyed.