Back in 2005, the Oxford Hair Foundation made the claim that redheads are going to be extinct by 2060 due to its red hair being a recessive trait. This news spread rapidly all over the internet, news, radio, etc. Having a younger brother who actually has red hair, made me wonder if he was really one of the last of a dying breed.

Not discovered until recently in the 1990’s, red hair was found to be caused by a mutation of the MC1R gene. In addition, because it was also found to be a recessive trait, it can only be passed down to a child if both of the parents are carrying the trait. However, it can skip generations, like what happens in my family, and be missed by every other generation.

So mathematically, because all other hair color are always dominant over red hair, it was thought to eventually be the trait that over time got weeded out of the gene pool, such as this instance where the Oxford Hair Foundation made an attempt to claim that it would be completely weeded out by 2060. David Pearce, of the University of Rochester Medical Center came back with this beyond obvious claim, “While red hair has certainly made the endangered list, there are approximately 4% of nearly 6.4 billion people carrying the gene for red hair, which is too great a number to be wiped out completely in the next 50-90 years.” So even though there was no study to prove that they wouldn’t be extinct centuries down the road, there are still far too many red heads today for there to be none left by the end of this century.

In fact, scientists from as long ago as 1865 began making claims that blonde hair would be extinct by the beginning of the 1900’s. Ironically, there are plenty…maybe too many… blondes left 150 years after the claim was similar reasoning was made. Therefore, it’s safe to say that even though there is a possibility that the trait of red head hair may be extinct centuries down the road from now, the red-heads of today are not yet the last of a dying bread.

http://www.hairfinder.com/info/redhead-extinction.htm

http://science.howstuffworks.com/life/genetic/redhead-extinction.htm