General Chat

I was showing my youngest (blonde, pale and prone to sunburn - takes after her dad) photographs of her ancestors.
'Here's great granddad (the dock worker) in his 'Buffs' outfit.
Here he is dressed as a cowboy, and here, dressed as a woman' (like you do)

The photo's online had opened so you could see them all.

Youngest then honed in on a coloured school photo of an approximately 9 year old girl. Black haired, with very dark olive skin - and the photo had faded, so it didn't show the 'true' colour.
'Who's that, I've never seen her before - she's not a relly is she? She looks middle eastern - was she a friend of yours?'

Me: .......'It's me'.

Youngest: 'Whaaaaat?'

I then showed her a small dark 'blob' I have on my face, usually hidden by my hairline - a 'blob' I had gone to see my doctor about, 5 years ago, in case it was a melanoma.
Transpires it is merely the remnant of the skin colour I once had.

I'm grey now, and as my hair has lightened, so has my skin.(apart from the blob)

Explains why I was racially abused as a child - and actually had a teacher ask if me and my friend (English mother, Chinese Mauritian father - took after her father) totally different surnames - were related!
Yet the most 'foreign' ancestors I have found (not even Irish or Welsh) are the Cornish ones - and they go back to the 17th century.
There's possibly a smidging of Dutch during the fen drainage in the 17th century., but they weren't renowned for being dark.

Methinks my sister (brown haired light skinned - always), brothers - one blonde, one black haired, all paler than me in our youth, and I, need some DNA testing :-S

Mixed up at birth ?? .......of course if you were a home birth that's less likely :-D

And the milkman?

As a toddler (black and white photo's) I look exactly like my mother.
Just like to say, there's 13 months between my brothers, 17 months between the younger brother and my sister - and 4 years 5 months between my sister and I - and a 'rush trip' by my mother from Hampshire to Scotland (where dad was based) at some time. (need to ask the brothers) :-S :-S :-S
Rumour has it (via mum) that dad was 'playing around'.
Dad's views on this (told only to me) are to the contrary.

I just let it lie - but youngest's reaction to the photograph was a little startling.

Will have to let the elder daughter (interestingly, much darker skinned than her sister) see the picture. :-D

Don't worry Maggie.
My sister was exactly the same as a child.

A photo taken when she was about 3yrs old taken with our older siblings who were about 6 &7.
The older ones had white curls and pale skin.
This one was so dark that you can see white skin showing through her dark hands and fingernails

3 of us are blonde, blue eyed and light skinned. ( my dad)
2 are dark with dark eyes ( my mum)

My brother ( who is dark) has 2 grown up kids, a girl and a boy.
When they were little, they had identical faces.
They were so similar, right down to their dimples, except
the girl is/was really dark and the boy is/was extremely blonde

They look like a positive and negative photo image !

I have black and white photo of me as a toddler with my siblings - and you can hardly see me :-S

Mum had dark brown hair, brown eyes. Dad had black hair, incredible blue eyes.
One brother has the black hair/blue eyes.
The other one was blonde/blue eyes.
Sister, blue eyes, brown hair, fair highlights
Me: black hair brown eyes.

Maybe the blonde hair/blue eyed brother should get a DNA test as well :-D :-D :-D

Also, about 4 yrs ago, I found a Glasgow web site with old school class photos.

My dad went to one of the schools listed and I wondered if I would even recognise him if he was in any of them.
The only childhood pic that I ever saw of him was an infant studio photo.

One class photo had no date but it had to have been taken around 1925/6
I spotted my 8/9 yr old father immediately.
His face is identical to my older sisters face when she was about the same age.
It's uncanny!

I found his younger siblings in some of the other school photos too.

Strangely looking at the photo's, my aunt (elder sister to my mother) has fat ankles and legs, whilst my mother has skinny ankles and legs.
My elder sister has fat ankles and legs while I have (had) skinny ankles and legs.
The same is true of my own two daughters - elder fatter ankles etc than the younger :-D :-D

You do read of births were a recessive gene comes to the fore. White parents with a tighty curled hair, very dark skinned baby. Perhaps you're one of them?

From what you've told us about your Dad, he was a loving father towards you, regardless of your DNA. Let sleeping dogs lie.

My Mum's eldest sister had black, curly hair and brown eyes. Mum and other siblings had blonde hair (straight) and light eyes. This was always pondered on and it wasn't until Gran died, and eldest sister found her birth certificate, that she discovered that she was born out of wedlock and with no father named. She did look a lot like Gran, though, and was fair skinned, but one of her sons is very dark, in summer he's mahogany!

Det, I know about recessive genes - hence my initial point about my ancestry, though, having said that, my grand dad's best 'mate' was black - that's black, not mixed race. His father was from Barbados, but his mother was 6th generation English.
Unless (like me) one had seen a photo of Stan, you would have no idea of his colour, and would have assumed he was possibly mixed race, but probably white. :-D

I'm also, not taking it seriously - just intrigued.