"Brown?... I thought it was green!"

[liverbird09]

When our Grandson uttered these words, we knew he had trouble seeing certain colours. His Grandad has the same difficulty with the same colours (various other tones too)  so assume it must be inherited...this got us wondering which side of the ancestors would have been affected.
My husband's parents didn't have it...but could his Mum have been the carrier?
It seems to skip a generation, as neither our daughter or son had colour blindness, yet my daughter's son is affected ....again, female carrier 
Would be really interested to hear about similar inherited vision and if it could possibly be the females who carry the gene.
Jean

[Viktoria]

My husband always says certain shades of grey are brown, he does not differentiate between sage greens and lovats either.It causes enless arguments when I have carefully selected toning and matching items and he comes downstairs in non matching colours which  don`t tone in.
I realised my son has the same problem when I complemented him on the colour of his trousers--A khaki/beige, he said he was pleased he had found a shirt which was exactly the same colour-----his shirt was khaki/olive .His job means this could be a real problem!!!!
My other son does not have this problem but my daughter`s "taste" in certain areas seems questionable because she thinks that shades are in the same tone range when in fact they often clash, for example orangey reds and pinky reds go together for her.
Of course it could be me who is wrong!  Perhaps that is why I voted for the wrong person in the elections---!Viktoria.

[c-side]

Colourblindness, whatever form it takes, is generally (though not always) carried by the female and manifested in the male.  That's why it appears to skip a generation.

My father's family had it in all generations because one of the females married a man who was colourblind.  My sister then did the same thing!  So her sons have it through her from my father but any sons my niece may have are likely to inherit it through her from her father.

Me?  I had two daughters and it appears to have gone from my line.   

Christine

[DudleyWinchurch]

Yes,

the colour vision genes are apparently carried on the X of the XY pair of chromasomes (on the part that is missing anyway from the Y chromasome) and so can lead to a fairly simple genetic defect.

So, if a female is a carrier, one of her Xs is missing the important genetic material for colour vision and although she can have perfect colour vision from the other X chromasome, her sons have a fifty percent chance of inheriting the defect [added: and her daughter's a fifty percent chance of being carriers].  Of course, when there are only small numbers of offspring, it might miss them.

One of my two sons, my only brother and my mother's only brother are/were all affected, as is one of my older sister's two sons.

For a girl to be affected her mother must be a carrier and her father must be affected.  In such a case, all the daughters will be carriers and fifty percent will again be likely to be affected.

There are however, two basic levels.   One is red-green colour-blindness and the more severe is red-black.  There may be other more rare defects too, that I am not aware of.  In our family it's the more severe red-black colour-blindness.  And it's not always the colours that you would expect that are confused.  There seems to be absolutely no difference between blue and purple!  I understand red-green affects about ten percent of boys overall and red-black only about one percent.

[liverbird09]

Thank you all so much for replying,
I have just discovered that my husband's late mum's brother was also colour blind....slightly unnerving to know that he worked for the GPO in the good old days, connecting numerous coloured cables

From the information everyone has kindly given, we can assume one of my husband's maternal grandparents passed on the defect.
Apparently, red lettering on a black background is difficult to make out for husband and Grandson..also blue/purple and differing tones of green/yellow, red/orange/brown.
 I have the choice when it comes to picking the right tie etc.!
Jean

   

[DudleyWinchurch]

Hi Jean,

sounds like he's one of the one percent red-black colour-blind men, like in our family.

If no new colour-blind men marry in then it would be the mother, the mother's mother, the mother's mother's mother etc. that passed it on.  A colour blind father can pass it on to his daughters (as a carrier only, unless the mother is also a carrier or one of the rare colour-blind females herself) but not to his sons, as they only get the Y-chromasome with no colour vision genes, anyway.

Forgot to mention that I have a colour-blind grandson too.

Thanks for this topic.  I hadn't thought to map it out in my family but I will now follow this up and see if it was passed on in other families too on my maternal line.

Sheila

[Viktoria]

Do I understand then that my daughter just has unusual taste in colours and without actually being colourblind( actually  I think I knew that females are not really  colourblind) does not see the relationship of tones. What kind of colourblindness do my husband and son have?They really can not see the difference between greens,beiges,greys etc.
Hasn`t this been interesting and informative? Viktoria.

[DudleyWinchurch]

Hi Viktoria,

If both your husband and your son are colourblind then there is a fifty percent chance that your daughter is too (assuming that you yourself are not).

I think that any optician would be able to test this for her.  The tests that my sons had involved recognising numbers in patterns so required just that they were able to recognise numbers.  My oldest son was tested at about five years old but the younger one not until much later (we were already confident that he was not affected by this).

[added: if not already, they could all be tested to find out the extent of the problem]

[Viktoria]

Thanks Dudley,all my children are adults and until the trouser/shirt episode we had no idea my second son was in any way affected. It is relatively recent that my husband ( in his 70`s) has shown that he does have difficulty with greys/beiges and green tones.This is probably because I have always put out his clothes ready because I could not trust him not to turn up at a formal function dressed in his oldest shirt !!!Since I decided I will not do this anymore there have been some "differences of opinion"regarding matching and non matching clothes.I then realised he had this difficulty.I`ll say " you can`t wear grey with beige" ---"that`s not grey it`s brown"
My daughter does not have glasses but I will mention to her TACTFULLY--- that  as her Dad and brother have this difficulty she ought to get checked out. All three have glaucoma checks as both my husband and myself have that and children over 40 get free checks.She can perhaps get both checked at the same time. Thanks again. Viktoria.