I have Civil War enlistment forms from NARA for my gg-grandfather, Caleb WARD, and his 2 brothers, Nelson and Joseph. The forms note that two brothers had brown hair, blue eyes, and one was blond with blue eyes. My grandfather, Fred WARD, had brown hair, blue eyes. My father and brothers (WARDs) have brown hair and blue eyes, as do my brothers children. -----Original Message----- From: Samantha Wilson [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Monday, July 03, 2000 3:12 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: Blue-Eyed WARDs Bebe, Genetics can be very interesting........... All you have to have is a recessive blue from one parent meet up with a recessive blue from the other parent and--voila!! A blue eyed child from two brown eyed parents! My blond, blue eyed (WARD) grandmother wanted at least one brown eyed child to take after my very dark eyed SAMS grandfather (the family swears there's Native American in his mother's family, but I haven't found it yet) but all five children had all shades of blue eyes--from startling blue to my father's blue that changes, depending on what he wears. He, like his father, has Native American characteristics. My other grandparents, one blue eyed, the other hazel (a derivative of the brown gene) had ten children and they all had brown eyes! A parent with blue eyes can only give a blue eye gene. Those of us with a blue eyed parent and a brown eyed parent and also have brown eyes (such as my husband and myself) have a one in four chance (with each child) of that child's eyes being blue; the other three chances are having a child with brown eyes--but only two of those are able to pass on the blue eyed gene. That's how two Hispanics, both with an Irishman in the background, can have a blue eyed redhead (this happened in my friend's family)!! Did I confuse you enough? Anyone else think of an easier way to explain it? Samantha