My Family Tree

BIO/101

October 30, 2012

My Family Tree

For this week’s assignment in Biology I am to write about three generations in my family. My presentation is based solely on my father’s side of my family due to not being able to find out much about my mother’s side. The following is what I was able to research about my family tree. I spoke with my Grandmother Alice Duvall about this assignment and was able to determine that blue eye color is more dominant in our family than any other eye color. My grandparents, father, my aunt, my cousins and myself have blue eyes; I got lucky and have mood ring eyes. My eyes based on what mood I’m in can change from a dark blue to a light gray. Blue eye color stems from my family’s Irish background. I have also found that brown hair color runs in our family as well. This more than likely stems from our French, German, Indian, and Hispanic roots. Everyone except for a handful all have light to dark brown hair while the others have blonde. The right hand is more dominant in my family. Only a select few in my family are ambidextrous. My father and I are considered ambidextrous because we use both hands equally while doing something, whether it is cooking, writing, eating, etc. I am mostly known for writing right handed while eating left handed. I would have to say that the tallest person in my family would have to be six feet. The average height in our family is about five foot six inches. For the male family members the average height is five foot nine inches and for the women it is about five foot five inches. I do have some female cousins that are five foot ten inches tall. I am five foot eight inches in height. I am the only one in my family that has a widow’s peak. It’s small and not too noticeable, but it does exist. I have asked numerous family members if they have a widow’s peak and all have answered no. So I assume that I am the only one in the family that has it. No one in our family has hitchhiker’s thumb. I found that to be kind of odd when I asked random family members if they have hitchhiker’s thumb. I would have thought that at least a few of us would have had it. As far as family genetic disorders go, I will admit that I was not too sure what this meant. So I figured I’d list a few things that I know of that are in my family and were at some point. Breast cancer is in my family; a few family members have suffered from this cancer. My grandfather suffers from Leukemia. He has chemotherapy treatments from time to time and is on certain medications for it. Skin cancer runs in my family as well, I’m not too sure what exact types run in the family. I just know it does because my father mentioned it to me the other night when I was talking to him. I feel that knowing this kind of information about one’s family enables you to see who they are on a higher level. You can tell a lot from someone’s family genes and why they suffer from a certain disorder or behavior. For example, doctors are able to pin point exactly what gene causes Autism in children based off of that child’s family genes. Having the opportunity to understand someone’s family genes can open a new door to learning. You can learn what chromosomes create what and what genes put together make a certain eye color. I find this to be quite fascinating. Technology in the future will enable us to find out so much more about someone’s family genes on a whole new level.

References
My father, Grandparents, and memory