Origin of "black" haired caucasians ... ?

[Lightning Rod]

cat,

My grandmother used to refer to people with the coloring you describe as "Black Irish"

These were people with fair skin, blue eyes and black hair.

I think knip is correct about the out of africa theory. Just recently some geneticists discovered the single gene that supposedly represents the mutation that is responsible for white skin.

Much as the domestic cat's ancestors were African wildcats, and now, just a scant five or six thousand years since its domestication we have numerous breeds which have various characteristics. Some are hairless, tail-less, some have fluffy hair and some have short hair. We have Siamese, Burmese and Persian.

It strains my credulity somewhat to consider the possibility that homo sapiens evolved from several origins. The migratory theory makes more sense.

[Arcadia]

now that you mentioned it, I remember to see a fourth or fifth generation of welsh-origin people in Trelew and Gaiman in Chubut. Black hair, blue eyes and very (too much) white skin. Well, it was october...
the last information I also have is the one that l-rod and knip said. But if you want more precision and variety of conventional fenotipic information you can limit the period to ten or fifteen generations and wander inside these limits. You can also think (as a friend of mine) that he´s from another planet.
I have first hand information about my origins hasta three generations before mine. And it´s fifty-fifty sicilian and venetian.
Before that, I can only imagine (which is great) greek, turkish, polish, hungarian, balkanic, mongolic, gipsy and maybe jews ancestors.
I wish I had more near native american and african biological-geographic origins too, but I can bond to the cultures with no need of thinking in the genes.
And in the end if you want action you have the traditional reencarnation theory to play with (I prefer not, it´s easier imagine).

[firsty]

not to be too scientifically genetically ignorant, but it would seem that certain traits would travel better than others, namely dark hair, simply because they are dominant traits.

black irish exactly.

those places where appearances are more dramatic are simply more isolated. getting into irish roots means getting into places where more people can trace their ancestors to invaders, victims of invaders from several branches above, mixing things up further. my roots are irish, gypsies, germans and french, various degrees of darkness, usually darker hair lighter skin winning out just based on odds i guess.

we're all descended from vikings and penguins. imagine the trouble dinosaurs had in trying to figure this shit out, them lasting for multimillions of years and we're expected to believe that there was no brain evolvement there? light-skinned reptiles, actually, have been clearly shown to be exceedingly lazy beasts. the flying ones ran a sort of mob, la costra nostrasaurium. when the mammoths came, they were set as slaves, their hair used for pillow stuffing and sex padding.

[Lightning Rod]

firsty,

in deference to any intelligent designers that may be lurking here, I'm not even going to mention the monkeys.

[firsty]

the monkeys are watching everything. we have to be careful.

[mousey1]

Y'all are examples of intelligent design and don't bother to deny it. I on the other hand am having trouble fathoming my origin...but I'm pretty sure it ain't from no dang monkey...much as I love monkeys. And I have nothing more intelligent to say...

[Lightning Rod]

mousey,

I think our new cat is part monkey. shhhhh, don't tell anybody. The gene police will be on my doorstep.
But the cat can climb on places that I didn't even know were places.

As for me, I think I evolved from a starfish. I see radial symmetry quicker than I recognize bi-lateral symmetry. I'm more inclined to 5/4 time than I am to 4/4 time.

My ambition, before I die, is to have a perfectly tailored suit. I'm sure they will have to analyze my genes in order to accomplish this.

[Axanderdeath]

yo but what about jim jarmsch and his white hair???

[whimsicaldeb]

~laughing~ (over the last few posting/exchanges)

... Where does this weird black hair come from? Anyone from the UK know what I am talking about? ~ abcrystcats

Seems the answer is, Yes!

Your question stuck in my mind, so I privately put the question to Sarah, from Reading, UK (from : http://www.edmitchellapollo14.com/phpBB2/index.php) and this was her reply ...

I have certainly seen hair like that - my grandfather (on my mother's side) had very black hair (he didn't colour it and it remained mostly black into his 70s), and my dad had black hair too (although he's grey now). So two members of my family, unrelated to each other, had this black hair. She's right - it's definitely not brown - no trace of brown at all. My grandfather was Irish, from Dublin, but beyond his father (who was also Dublin-Irish) we don't know, as his father was adopted and died at the Somme in 1916. My dad is from Derbyshire in northern England, as are his ancestors.

There are a number of people who are descended from Spanish/British ancestors - during the reign of Elizabeth I (1500s), Spain planned an invasion of England. They sent a huge number of ships, full of troops, over to England and we would probably have been involved in a full-scale land war, had the weather not intervened. The winds blew virtually the entire Armada off course, leaving only a few ships to face the entire English Navy (at whose hands they were defeated). Here's the interesting bit: several boats ended up off the coasts of western Ireland and north-eastern England and Scotland. The survivors ended up coming ashore and settling where they landed, intermarrying with the locals and leading to some unusual colouring entering the genetic makeup of these regions. I understand that Mediterraneans traditionally have dark (often black) hair - perhaps these fair-skinned, black-haired people represent the remnants of the Spanish Armada?

[abcrystcats]

whimsical deb -- how cool! Thanks for the answer!

And thanks to everyone else who pointed out the Black Irish and so on.

Your friend's answer seems so knowledgeable and definitive that I am going with that one. Therefore, it would seem that my father probably got his black hair from his paternal grandmother, Hallie, who had some Irish roots. The best person to ask about this black hair thing would be my Uncle Bob, but he's in New York right now. He knows EVERYTHING, lol.

My grandmother always stubbornly called the hair color "dark brown" but I could never see a strand of BROWN.

Knip, I beg your pardon about the "out of Africa" thing. I will do some research on the internet and educate myself a bit.