# Is beard color inherited exclusivly from the father? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 12, 2011, 7:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-beard-color-inherited-exclusivly-from-the-father/585204 "2011-06-12T07:30:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![AllFreedomUnlessDefyingScience](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e36b37/32.png) [@AllFreedomUnlessDefyingScience](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AllFreedomUnlessDefyingScience)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2011, 7:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-beard-color-inherited-exclusivly-from-the-father/585204/1 "2011-06-12T07:30:46Z")
My father had brown hair and a red beard, I have blonde hair and a red beard. Our beards seem to share other similarities. Is beard color inherited from your father? ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2011, 8:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-beard-color-inherited-exclusivly-from-the-father/585204/2 "2011-06-12T08:00:02Z")
I’m one data point that says no. My dad’s hair and beard are very dark brown (well, grey now) but my beard is a mixture of black, brown, blond and red bristles. Much more like my mother’s side of the family. I’m sure someone will be along to talk about recessive genes and the like - but from my schooldays I vaguely remember there’s nothing to say that the genes that determine beard color will be exclusively from the paternal side. ---
**Author:** ![naita](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naita/32/5862_2.png) [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2011, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-beard-color-inherited-exclusivly-from-the-father/585204/3 "2011-06-12T12:52:34Z")
I doubt beard colour is situated on the Y-chromosome. Isn’t beard growth mainly a consequence of testosterone? My educated guess would be that the inheritance of facial hair colour is the same for men and women, but that it’s just trickier to tell the colour in women. ---
**Author:** ![An\_Arky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/87869e/32.png) [@An\_Arky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Arky)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2011, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-beard-color-inherited-exclusivly-from-the-father/585204/4 "2011-06-12T12:58:03Z")
No in my case. My dad’s was dark, mine’s nutmeg-colored. He had dark brown hair, mine’s sort of dirty strawberry blond. ---
**Author:** ![Motorgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e36b37/32.png) [@Motorgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Motorgirl)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2011, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-beard-color-inherited-exclusivly-from-the-father/585204/5 "2011-06-12T12:58:54Z")
My husband’s beard is very dark brown. His dad’s is blond. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2011, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-beard-color-inherited-exclusivly-from-the-father/585204/6 "2011-06-12T13:20:44Z")
My ex’s beard is blond, but our son’s is red. Really red, not mixed blond and red. Actually, our son got his father’s hair - color (ash, almost white, blond), texture and curl - but we’re really not sure where the red beard came from. I have hair that’s called “dark blonde” by colorists and brown by everyone else. No one else in the family on either side has red hair until you get out to his paternal cousin once removed, whose mother (not a blood relative to my son) is a redhead. And my ex has 5 siblings, some with children of their own, so it’s not really a small sample size! ---
**Author:** ![Candyman74](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ad7895/32.png) [@Candyman74](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Candyman74)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2011, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-beard-color-inherited-exclusivly-from-the-father/585204/7 "2011-06-12T14:03:22Z")
Unless my parents aren’t telling me something really important, no. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2011, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-beard-color-inherited-exclusivly-from-the-father/585204/8 "2011-06-12T14:30:07Z")
> [@jjimm](#): > > I’m sure someone will be along to talk about recessive genes and the like - but from my schooldays I vaguely remember there’s nothing to say that the genes that determine beard color will be exclusively from the paternal side. > [@naita](#): > > I doubt beard colour is situated on the Y-chromosome. Actually, not only do genetic qualities not need to be on the Y chromosome to be inherited only from the father, there aren’t many functional genes on the Y at all. Mostly, the Y contains a single gene that “switches on” other “male genes” in the rest of the DNA. Anyway, quite a few genetic qualities are [inherited only from the mother or father](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genomic_imprinting) because the copy of the gene(s) from the other parent is or are disabled. For example, it turns out that the inborn superior social skills of women are apparently largely inherited from their father; if a woman is born with only one X chromosome, her social skills will depend on the gender of the parent it comes from. If it’s from her mother, she’ll have about the same skills as a typical boy, while if it’s from her father she’ll be about average for women. So it’s at least possible for beard color or any other inherited quality to come from only one parent. ---
**Author:** ![Dallas\_Jones](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dallas_jones/32/3277_2.png) [@Dallas\_Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dallas_Jones)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2011, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-beard-color-inherited-exclusivly-from-the-father/585204/9 "2011-06-12T16:03:28Z")
In this current thread on red hair the Wiki link breifly discusses men with brown hair and red beards. > **[Whence redheads?](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=612102)** > > Are all (natural) redheads descended from Irish and/or Scotish cave people? Peace, mangeorge BTW, I did search here. The SDMB runneth over with redhead stuff, and I tire. > **[Red hair](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_hair)** > > Red hair, also known as orange hair or ginger hair, is a human hair color found in 1–2% of the world population, appearing with greater frequency (2–6%) among people of Northern or Northwestern European ancestry and lesser frequency in other populations. It is most common in individuals homozygous for a recessive allele on chromosome 16 that produces an altered version of the MC1R protein. > Red hair varies in hue from a deep burgundy or bright copper, or auburn, to burnt orange or red-orange t... ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2011, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-beard-color-inherited-exclusivly-from-the-father/585204/10 "2011-06-12T16:07:36Z")
If your beard, or any other hair is gray, you inherited it from your kids. ---
**Author:** ![Cheshire\_Human](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/5f8ce5/32.png) [@Cheshire\_Human](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheshire_Human)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2011, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-beard-color-inherited-exclusivly-from-the-father/585204/11 "2011-06-12T19:58:10Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > If your beard, or any other hair is gray, you inherited it from your kids. I don’t have any kids. My head is light brown, my beard is grey. Who did I inherit each from, in your theory? 😕 😃 ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2011, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-beard-color-inherited-exclusivly-from-the-father/585204/12 "2011-06-12T20:18:12Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Anyway, quite a few genetic qualities are [inherited only from the mother or father](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genomic_imprinting) because the copy of the gene(s) from the other parent is or are disabled. For example, it turns out that the inborn superior social skills of women are apparently largely inherited from their father; if a woman is born with only one X chromosome, her social skills will depend on the gender of the parent it comes from. If it’s from her mother, she’ll have about the same skills as a typical boy, while if it’s from her father she’ll be about average for women. Can you quote the part of your cite that says this? I didn’t find it there. > [@](#): > > So it’s at least possible for beard color or any other inherited quality to come from only one parent. I don’t know what that even means. It’s possible that evolution could have made it that way… but it didn’t. Beard color is not inherited only from the father. ---
**Author:** ![conurepete](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a88e57/32.png) [@conurepete](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/conurepete)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2011, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-beard-color-inherited-exclusivly-from-the-father/585204/13 "2011-06-13T02:12:15Z")
My husband’s father had a respectable dark brown then silver European style beard, but my husband has a sparse Blackfoot Indian inherited beard with weird red,blonde and black hair. So on one data point, nope. He couldn’t even grow a beard till he was thirty, and photos imply his dad could grow one at about age 13. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2011, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-beard-color-inherited-exclusivly-from-the-father/585204/14 "2011-06-13T04:20:02Z")
> [@Cheshire\_Human](#): > > I don’t have any kids. My head is light brown, my beard is grey. Who did I inherit each from, in your theory? 😕 > > 😃 Don’t know about the head. The beard could be from some future kids of yours. Their genes can be pretty strong 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Rachellelogram](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rachellelogram/32/8689_2.png) [@Rachellelogram](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rachellelogram)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2011, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-beard-color-inherited-exclusivly-from-the-father/585204/15 "2011-06-13T19:17:46Z")
I question why anyone would think this. Have they never seen facial hair on women with hormone disorders? It’s there. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2011, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-beard-color-inherited-exclusivly-from-the-father/585204/16 "2011-06-13T19:20:56Z")
> [@rachelellogram](#): > > I question why anyone would think this. Have they never seen facial hair on women with hormone disorders? It’s there. Actually, all women have facial hair. It’s just tiny. So the idea that men might inherit their beard color from their fathers starts from a faulty premise that facial hair is male trait.