So, you are saying that my husband’s family has a better chance passing on all of their chromosomes than I do because I have no siblings?
I have several first cousin marriages in both my mother’s and my father’s families in the early to mid 1800s. Does that mean that I have a double (or triple) shot at their available chromosomes?
Hopefully my 11 grandchildren have a full contingent of chromosomes (and no extras, please) from somewhere! I see the curly blonde hair and blue eyes amongst them (from my Scandanaivian ancestors) but also my husband’s chocolate eyes and dark hair from his side (Italian). LOL
Isn’t it fun to guess what they will look like. I have two grandkids and one on the way. The two don’t look anything alike but both are from the same parents. The third could be dark haired or light haired; brown, green or blue eyed; big nosed to small up-turned nose; tall, average or short; heavy set or skinny. Only one looks like it is related to me so far.
Huh? No, that’s not at all what I’m saying. When two people have a baby, the child has but half of the chromosomes of each parent (except in cases of Down’s Syndrome, Turner Syndrome, and some others). A parent with only one child will never pass on any more than half, and if a parent has no siblings, and had no aunts or uncles, a great deal of the genetic info just winds up vanishing.
As we have 23 chromosome pairs, we can’t pass down a quarter of each of our grandparents’ — the closest we can get is 11 of one, and 12 of the other, but that’s not necessarily going to happen. Having three children makes it very likely that both sides of each chromosome pair of each parent has made it to the next generation.