Correlation between North Europeans / blond hair?
14. June 2007 - 13:49 — E_Henry
As the B-society originated in Denmark, and I'm blond with blue eyes, I was wondering how common this is with the rest of the members here.
I don't expect a large percentage, 50% or anything like it (blond people are relatively rare) but it does seem to be a relic of living in the far north.
Any thoughts?
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A nice mix of Northern Europe
My father's family is Austrian; my mother's is Norewegian, Swedish, Danish, and German. I have light brown hair, grey eyes.
A classmate of mine who seems to be an extreme B person has Egyptian ancestry (dark hair and eyes).
Incidentally, ancestry is one of the questions they asked for Dr. Kripke's DSPS study. (http://www.nightowl.ucsd.edu/)
Maybe they will find something interesting re ancestry and DSPS.
sorry for my english
i am from Quebec in Canada ...all people people here talk french but the majority of desendant from here are frome normandie in france or a lot of north european country but we have french name and we talk french the majority of people here have light hair and eyes....... for me i have ''chatains hair and blue grey-eyes pale skin
light skinned Aboriginal here
Yeah well I'm a light skinned Aboriginal with both European and Chinese ancestors in there somewhere. Out of both sides of my family, I am the strongest b-person, and the only family member I think with DSPS. Of my five children, so far I can see that the seven year old and the eight year old will be much like me, whereas my oldest child is an a-person just like her father. We all have dark hair and eyes, and varying shades of skin tone, ranging from fair like me, all the way to very brown like my husband.
Spaniard
I'm very Spanish. Dark hair, brown eyes, white skin and the same problem...
Dark brown, green eyes
I´m norwegian, 190cm, dark brown hair and green/grey eyes. So I guess we´re all kinds in here :)
Blonde from Sweden
I'm a blond B-person from Sweden. My mom and sister are brunettes with brown eyes but both are B-persons as well.
I find the theory very interesting but I'm not sure if there is a correlation.
I know at least 7 blond people who are early birds and dozens of brunettes who are B-persons (of course the latter may still carry blond genes).
Perhaps we could make polls in other forums and among our friends to get more statistical material?
Brunette
Another new member here. I have auburn (dark reddish brown) hair and hazel/green eyes, but am definitely a B person. Perhaps even a C person, if there is such a thing. Left to my own devices, I come alive around 3 or 4 P.M., and tire out around 6 or 7 A.M.
Both my parents have dark brown hair and eyes, and are A people. My brother also has dark brown hair and eyes, and is a strong B person like me. My son has light brown hair and blue eyes, and is an A person, although he's at the age where staying up late is a great novelty.
Once he's out of school, I'm going to stop trying to adapt to the A cycle, and let myself sleep when I naturally feel tired. I suspect my health overall will improve when I am able to do that.
I'm a mixie...
and I am a b-person while my mother is an absolute aperson. she wakes up at 6 am 5 days a week. at the moment I am unemployed so I dont need to get up quite early. sometimes it happens that I sleep 12 hours straight. at first I thought my body wasnt fit or something. but now I think I am just a b-person.
I like it more when I have appontments in the morning but not before 9 am. Its like I live one hour delayed. I hope you get what I am trying to say. When people usually get up at 6 am, to me it would be 7 am. well.. actually the alarm clock would ring at and I would get up at 7.30, still tired.
red - green
Hi, I am a new member and from Luxembourg, so I live in the middle of Western Europe. But, I have red hair and green/grey eyes and I am very pale, what is very strange because I am the one of only two persons in our big family who has these characteristics.
So I think I am very close to the Nordic people (especially Irish :D ).
My mother has brown hair und eyes and is absolutely an A-Person. She gets up 7 a.m. every day, even with only 3 or 4 hours of sleep.
When i was younger (and living with my parents) I never heard the alarm bell although it woke up my whole family!
Now I am a student and I don´t need to get up early in the morning.
Red hair
It is not at all uncommon for red hair to pop up all of a sudden in non-redhaired families (where both parents may carry and pass on the gene without being redhaired themselves). This is perfectly normal and has a genetic explanation. From the wikipedia article about red hair that someone posted:
"The inheritance of red hair is close to what geneticists describe as an autosomal recessive mode of inheritance. This means that the parents of red haired children may carry the gene for red hair but not have red hair themselves.
"There is also evidence that red hair may be an example of incomplete dominance. This means that when only one copy of the red hair allele is present, red hair may blend with the other hair color, resulting in different types of red hair including strawberry blond (red-blond) and auburn (red-brown)."
BELGIAN BLOND BOY...
Another blond... guy with green eyes.
I'm also a night owl. What I'm wondering is if everyone here also has the need to sleep a lot. If I do not use any alarm clock, I naturally sleep about 12 hours wether it's from 2AM till 2PM or from 4AM till 4PM. And if I'm really tired I can sleep up to 16 hours. Is it the same for you too?
sleeping a lot
oh yes, it's quite the same thing for me, I don't understand how it is possible to sleep so much, and some times beeing still tired! and the worst thing is that I use 3 alarm clock, and have still a lot of problem to wake up, people don't believe me, only my boyfriend see me so tired in the morning and know that I am not faking, I really can fall asleep even after 3 alarm clock, and radio, and phone call!
xxx leoblue
PS: and for your information, I am blond with blue eyes, and I think that only my oldest brother is B like me, all the others are A!
.. and another blonde
Interesting idea, yes I'm a blondie, so maybe the evidence is building. A friend of mine who researched ancient norse society says I have definite Viking features! I'm very blonde with blue eyes.
Waking up in the morning for me is like coming out of a general anaesthetic. I drink copious amounts of coffee to get through the day and no matter how hard I try, I can't get to sleep early. My mother is definitely an A person, she's a brunette. Incidentally, my beautiful blonde niece is just like me, a real sleepy head in the morning and I suspect a bit of a night owl.
I'm a brunette
Well, I am a Finn and a brunette with brown eyes. How about that?
I am the only B-person in my family.
Sorry, nope.
My father's side is English/ French.
My mother's side is Lower Silesian German (otherwise known as Schwarzes Deutscher).
Needless to say, I do not have blond hair. My hair is curly dark brown and I have very pale skin.
However, I do carry the gene for blue eyes (since my eyes are hazel).
Non Blond/Blue
I'm African American. I have one great-grandfather on each side that was Irish, and two great-grandmothers on each side that was Native American. My mom's dad had blue eyes, my own father has blue eyes, and my brother has hazel. I went blonde one year--kind of liked it, but it took a lot of intense maintenance, so I'm a red-head now.
LOL
Not Blonde
Ancestoral stock all from northern German in the former East Prussia area. Not blonde, rather a chestnut, but very light blue eyes.
Nordic seaons
Consider the northern european summers and winters with all night sun and then little sun in the winter.
I'd often been told in the past that my body rythem was "impossible" as it should react to the sunlight.
When I was in St Petersburg recently it reminded me that my ancestors didn't live in a year of fixed sunrises/sunsets.
Cortisol tests taken overa day and night showed that my cortisol is very low in the morning and only rises as the day goes on.
For the record, I'm a blue eyed blond and all my siblings with blond hair have the B trait. One sister wth brown hair is a A. Interestly her son (blond) is back to the family norm of B.
Any geneticists here?
Just enrolled in a
Just enrolled in a University of California study of genes connected to the Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome, or "B" gene. The enrollment forms for volunteers contain detailed questions about ancestry, specifically distinguishing Northern from Southern European ancestry, with a map for reference.
It seems very likely that geneticists are looking at this from the same perspective you have. I think the hPer3 gene is widely believed to relate to human circadian rhythm, and is now thought to be perhaps shorter or altered in Type B people.
My guess is that scientists are already considering that groups of people nearer the equator possibly benifited from having a very consistent daily cycle, and rhythms of sleep were probably linked to the more regular natural patterns of sunlight and darkness.
It is just my own speculation here, but the very occasional occurrance of a gene for being wide awake late at night might have been helpful to each band of humans who needed one or two individuals alert for regular night watch. But, consistent schedules would have been necessary for the vast majority in a settled group, I would think.
Perhaps those whose ancesters later left equatorial areas and spent thousands of years enduring wide seasonal variations in amount of available daylight would have developed a more common genetic varience of rhythms in response. It would be difficult for a group of early Northern Europeans to remain as physically dependent upon light patterns to set up sleep cycles, because it would have meant sleeping almost all the time in mid-winter, and almost never in summer.
If the night owl gene is eventually isolated and found to be distributed in regional or ethnic patterns, it will probably be found to have conferred a certain genetic advantage to some peoples, even if it never became prevelant in the majority of any group.
If that thory is right, blue-eyed blondes will be highly represented within the type B population, just because of their ancestral links to far Northwern lattitudes. But then, perhaps it will also be a more common gene among the Arctic Native American peoples as well.
For the record, I am a blue eyed brunette with very pale skin, with typically U.S. mixed ancestry, mostly French and English. I am certainly not a scientist but I am fascinated by the studies and happy to volunteer. My much blonder daughter has the same type B tenency, so I would like to help her and the other type Bs in her generation overcome the difficulties of adapting to an unhealthy or impossible early schedule.
Non-blonde
One for the pot - I'm naturally brown-haired like my dad, who is dark-skinned too, but my maternal grandmother was pale, blonde and blue eyed, and from a part of northern England with strong ties to Scandanavia.
My Norwegian maternal grandfather was red haired (not sure about eye colour) and my mum has red hair, very fair skin, and blue eyes.
My mum's a real A-person and I'm not sure, but I think my gran was a B-person - I don't know anything about my father's side.
I'm fair skinned, bleach my hair very light at the mo (which looks quite natural on me) and probably all the paler as I have non-24 hour sleep patterns, and so spend a lot of time awake all night!
Not Blonde..
I have green eyes and brown hair, I am half English and half Dutch. I think I am the only one in my family who has major problems in the morning; and no-one can understand it! Although my auntie on the Dutch side is quite similar to me so it could be a northern European thing?? Interesting thought!
Interesting...
I forgot to mention - I'm in England, from the North West, probably like other blonds with a lot of mixed heritage.
Almost everyone in England has a VERY mixed heritage!!!
sleep
i slept for 26 hours one time - because no one woke me up. i was about 18 at the time - no drugs or alcohol involved. Lately though i generally sleep 8 hours. sometimes 10 and occasionally 12.
Maybe twice a month i sleep 2 hours or miss a nights sleep completely.
Now at the age of 42 i can wake up and function at any time.
another blonde for the stats...
totally typical blonde-haired blue-eyed northern type. I'm just here to support the theory!
Yet another Blond
Yes, I'm another blond with blue eyes, which I spell without an "e" as I am a male. It is alleged to be the only word in English with a gender. I have quite a dark tan, from too much bicycle riding.
Strongly B parents, olive-skinned brown-eyed black-haired German mother and light-skinned blue-eyed brown-haired father, english/scottish/cornish/french/danish/english.
We are racially confused here in Australia. My brother and I are the only blonds, but he has only moderate trouble getting out of bed.
Dark hair, brown eyes. Typical latino!
I have brown eyes and dark hair but work best after 10am. My family have always been from Spain. They have siestas there in the afternoon due to the heat. That means they have to get up early and go to bed late so they get enough work done. They also like to party! I am not sure how they do it. Good for me I have Uk flexitime at work and I can do 10-6 shift!
Well i am blonde
Well i am blonde (straight-haired) and blue eyed, from England. My father is the same and we are both B-persons. I have recently done research on my ancestry and I am descended from Scandinavians who came to England in the 1300s.
My mother has curly brunette hair and is an A-person.
I wonder if there is a correlation here???
Red with blue eye...
Hm...
Adopted, so not quite sure about my ancestry, but I do have evidence to suggest a strong french/canadian connection on the maternal side.
Here's some genetic info:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_hair
and blond:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blond_hair