Inherited Traits

Inherited Traits

Who am I? Why do I look more like my dad than my mom? The answers are hidden in my genes. A lot of who we are as human beings is made up of inherited traits that are passed on from generation to generation. The purpose of this study is to gain an understanding about inherited traits and to look at specific traits or phenotypes that are prevalent in my family. By looking at and studying similar phenotypes within my family I hope to get a better understanding of who I am and where these traits came from. In this study I have looked at as many members of my family as I could to try and get an accurate account of ten different phenotypes within my family. Not only have I included myself and my daughter but I have included my mom and dad, my older sister, her husband, and their three children. Within the three generations I studied I was able to see which of my family members have similar traits and I was able to deduct which of my family members were homozygous or heterozygous with regards to their individual genotypes.

I looked at ten different inherited traits and out of the ten phenotypes I looked at six are all the same, meaning there was no differences between the nine people in my study. Of those six, only one I can say for sure we have exactly the same genotype. I know this because it is a recessive trait and the only way to receive the trait is to have both recessive alleles. Every one of us has homozygous recessive genotypes for our second toe being shorter than our big toe. Along with no cleft in our chins all of us also have four other traits in common but because they are dominant traits I cannot say with certainty if we have homozygous or heterozygous genotypes for those five traits.

This leaves us with four of the ten traits with significant differences. The first of these is the widow’s peak. Along with my dad I personally do not have a widow’s peak but my mom and sister do. This means that both my...