This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/an/Cei.2ACEB/2907.2925.1.3.1.1 Message Board Post: Ok! people! I have studied deafness and this is how it works. Three fourths of the population carry a recessive gene for deafness. In order for deafness to show up in a child BOTH parents must carry the SAME recessive gene. I agree that someone marrying in carried a deaf gene, most of us do, but William's parent Hicks had to have the SAME recessive gene for William and the other children to be deaf. The only reason more of us aren't deaf is because our parents married someone with a DIFFERENT recessive deaf gene. So see, A. G. Bell was right when he thought deafness "ran in the family"! But, you dont have to be deaf to produce a deaf child. In fact most deaf children have two hearing parents. And many, many children of two deaf parents are HEARING!