Who doesn't love a good genealogy controversy? A couple
weeks ago, I talked about whether Finland was part of
Scandinavia and today, I'm going to talk about one that is
just as passionate in the amount of comments that we get.
Which country has the most redheads? Ireland or Scotland?
Howdy, I'm Andy Lee with Family History Fanatics and this is a
segment of DNA. Now, today's topic is a really fun one.
Redheads. In past videos, I've consulted a number of different
sources whenever talking about redheads and their genetics and
populations and how they're distributed in different
populations and I've included some of those links in the
description below so that you can look at them but before we
get on with the controversy, let's talk a little bit about
the science part of it. There are several snips that are
linked with red hair and almost all of them are found on the
chromosome 16 the gene MC one R. The three most prominent
ones are RS180-5007 RS18-05-008 and RS18-05-009 now this is a
recessive gene so you need two copies of that gene in order to
have the red hair expression which means you got one from
both your mother and from your father if you only got one copy
of this gene then you're just a carrier and maybe your children
can have red hair as long as your spouse also is a carrier
of this gene. The majority of redheads throughout the world
are concentrated in Northwestern Europe. The
redheads can be found all over the world and a couple of non
Europeans who are reported as redheads are Cleopatra and
Geneus Khan. Now, my great grandfather came from Cornwall,
England which is actually a hotbed for redheads my
grandfather when he had hair he had red hair now I tested my
mom who is not a redhead but it shows that she is a carrier of
this gene at the SnipRS1805007. so then I looked at me and my
three brothers now my dad is not a carrier of this gene so
the only way that we could get the gene is if we got it from
our mother turns out I don't have that gene so I'm not a
carrier of the redhead gene but my three brothers all are
carriers of that redhead gene so then looked at all three of
their wives. Now, based on the snips that were reported by 23
and me, none of their wives are carriers of this gene but
having looked at some of my nieces and nephews, it actually
looks like a couple of them might have red hair. So, they
may have a copy of the gene that's affected by one of the
other snips that are tied to red hair but which country has
the most redheads? Now, basically, it really up in the
air. Pretty much all the sources that I looked at point
towards Ireland or Scotland and sometimes Wales and it's noted
that Northern Ireland and England all have really high
percentages of redheads as well. Unfortunately, none of
the sources seem to be looking at all five of those countries
or at the same thing whenever they were doing their research.
So, some research might mention two or three of the countries
but none of the research, all using the same methodology
looks at all five countries or at least as reported on that.
Ireland and Scotland are usually reported with about 10
to 15% and Wales is sometimes included in that although
usually at a smaller percentage than either Ireland or Scotland
but one thing that is interesting is most of the
sources that mentioned it, mentioned that Wales actually
has the highest percentage of carriers of the red-headed
gene. So, while Scotland and Ireland maybe in the 35 to
36percent range of carrier Wales is around 38 or 39%. Now,
England has about six to eight percent of their population
that are redheads. So, since we have a controversy, we decided
to go and ask the genealogist. At RootsTech in twenty 18, we
talked to these genealogists. My name is Amber Larson and I'm
from Ogden, Utah. Uh Robert Van Damme and live in Spanish Fork,
Utah at the moment. Uh my name is Guillermo. I'm from Chile.
My name is I currently live in Pleasant Grove, Utah. I'm Paul
Welton. I'm from Lehigh, Utah. I'm Randy Jones. I'm from
Cleveland, West here in Utah. I'm Debbie Alexander and I'm
from West Richland, Washington. My name is Susan Monson. I'm
from Ogden. Uh my name is Michael Strauss. I live in
Spanish forth Utah. Now, we didn't want to prejudice their
answers. So, all we asked is a simple question. What country
has the most redheads? Uh stereotypically, we think of
like Ireland or Scotland but statistic wise, the United
States has the highest population so I think probably
United States. We'd probably guess Ireland or Scotland? I
believe it's somewhere around Ireland. Which country? The
United States? Ireland. I would say Scandinavia. Ireland? Maybe
Scotland. I know what family doesn't have the most redheads.
That would be mine since it runs in my family and I'm
hugely disappointed. I am infatuated with redheads. I'm
going to say the United States. And you can see from those
interviews that Ireland had more votes than Scotland.
However, there was a couple of people that identified the
United States as having the most redheads. How that be?
Because Ireland and Scotland have about 10 to 15 percent and
the US only has about two to four percent. Uh but we're
talking about percentages, not actual numbers. Remember, we
just asked people which country has the most redheads. Well, it
turns out that population does matter. Now, Scotland has more
people than Ireland and so it turns out that Scotland has
about 680, 000 redheads while Ireland only has about 614, 000
redheads if they both have roughly the same percentage of
redheads. Wales is even smaller and so it actually has about
half as many redheads as Scotland or Ireland does but
then we start to look at other countries and even though they
have much smaller percentages of redheads because they're
much larger countries, they have more redheads. So,
Australia has more redheads than either Ireland or
Scotland. Canada has about twice as many redheads as
Ireland and Scotland. England, even though it has half the
percentage of redheads, it has a about five times as many
redheads in the total numbers as Ireland or Scotland. Russia
is one place that's proposed of where this redheaded gene
actually started and there's a group of very high
concentration of redheads within Russia but overall,
Russia has about two and a half to 2point8 million redheads.
So, at least four times the number of redheads as either
Ireland or Scotland and then we get to the United States with
because it has more than 300 million people even though
there's only about 3% of the population that is redheads
that equals 13 million redheads it totally dwarfs the number of
redheads of Ireland and Scotland in fact there's more
redheads in the United States than there are people in
Scotland and Ireland combined so the United States wins for
having the most redheads but there's also a couple of little
hiccups because like I said the redheads can actually be found
throughout most of the world. Now, it's really rare outside
of Europe and the Middle East but even in countries like
China and India, there is some small percentage of redheads
and because those countries have such a ginormous
population, both China and India have about a million
redheads each which is more than Scotland or Ireland. So,
maybe the next time you're thinking of redheads instead of
thinking of the Irish or the Scottish, you should be
thinking of the Chinese or the Indians. If you're a redhead
from Scotland or Ireland or anywhere else in the world, let
us know what you think in the comments below. Connect with us
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Fanatics where we can interact with you and respond to your
comments.