One popular myth is that hair loss in men is passed down from the mother's side of the family while hair loss in women is passed down from the father's side; however, the truth is that the genes for hair loss and hair loss itself are actually passed down from both sides of the family.
The primary baldness gene is on the X, or female chromosome, which men do inherit from their mothers. A study from the University of Bonn in Germany from 2005 confirmed this, and added fuel to the mother myth. And it is true: the hereditary factor is more dominant on the mother's side.
It is believed that hair health comes entirely from your mother's genes due to baldness being based on the X chromosome. However, you can inherit the hair loss gene from either side of your family.
All men inherit a Y chromosome from their father, which means all traits that are only found on the Y chromosome come from dad, not mom. The Supporting Evidence: Y-linked traits follow a clear paternal lineage.
Males normally have an X and a Y chromosome (XY). A male inherits an X chromosome from his mother and a Y chromosome from his father. The picture above therefore shows the chromosomes of a male as the last pair of chromosomes (XY). Sometimes, there is a change in one copy of a gene which stops it from working properly.
Fathers have both X and Y chromosomes. So they contribute one Y or one X chromosome to their offspring. Daughters get two X chromosomes, one from Mother and one from Father. So Daughter will inherit X-linked genes from her father as well as her mother.
When we casually observe via our eyes, we may feel that we have inherited most of our hair features from either our mom or dad. However, the reality is that we inherit equal volume of genetic information from both mom and dad.
Unlike nuclear DNA, which comes from both parents, mitochondrial DNA comes only from the mother.
Hair thickness is an “additive" trait. This means that if you inherited two copies of the “thick hair" version of the gene (one from each parent), you'll likely have even thicker hair strands than if you only inherited the "thick hair" version from one parent.
It's not really a question of whether your child will inherit the hair gene from Mom or Dad. Instead, your child inherits a myriad of genetic factors that all add up to their very own locks.
The Truth About Dominant and Recessive Genes
Each parent carries two alleles (gene variants) for hair color. Blonde hair is a recessive gene and brown hair is a dominant gene.
Physical features such as hair color, hair texture, hairline, skin, and varicose veins are inherited from your mother.
Type 1A hair is very straight and fine, with no hint of wave or curl. As it is so straight and fine, when the natural oils travel to the ends, it tends to cause it to look like oily hair. It is the rarest hair type and is common among women of Asian descent.
Caucasian hair is generally straight or wavy and is the thinnest, while its cross-section is relatively elliptic. As for African hair, it is very curly, its thickness is intermediate and the shape of cross-section is highly elliptic.
Hair diameter and type both had a small effect on attractiveness perception compared with the larger effect of color. Thick hair was perceived least attractive, with no statistical difference of minimum vs. mean diameter (mean vs. maximum diameter p < 0.01).
Your children inherit their eye colors from you and your partner. It's a combination of mom and dad's eye colors – generally, the color is determined by this mix and whether the genes are dominant or recessive. Every child carries two copies of every gene – one comes from mom, and the other comes from dad.
As well as the tip of your nose (which is 66% likely to be passed down from a parent), the other most-inherited features were your philtrum (the area directly beneath your nose), your cheekbones, the inner corners of your eyes, and the areas both above and below your lips.
Body size is an acquired trait, and cannot be passed on to the progeny.
Baldness can of course skip generations! If you have bald relatives on both sides of your family tree the chances are high you will be too. However, if the baldness shows up only on one side, it's highly possible the MPB gene will skip not only you but also your siblings. This is how the recessive gene works.
It's a fairly common misconception that a man's beard is inherited directly from his father. The truth is that beards are just like most other genetically derived features: they can come from either side of the family. The unique feature of beards, obviously, is that they don't appear until maturity.
There is no scientific basis for the idea that baldness skip generations, regardless of any old wives tales you may have heard from the grapevine.
A similar study in 2004 with a much larger sample size found that, in fact, most infants resemble both parents equally.
Winning by a Nose
Two large-nosed parents are likely to produce a large-nosed baby, and two small-nosed parents to produce a small-nosed baby. However, when a large-nosed father produces a child through a small-nosed mother, the baby can have a medium-sized nose, due to incomplete dominance.
One allele for every gene in an organism is inherited from each of that organism's parents. In some cases, both parents provide the same allele of a given gene, and the offspring is referred to as homozygous ("homo" meaning "same") for that allele.