Red Hair very common in Eastern European?

[il_Farhreneit]

Are Red hair really that rare in Eastern Europe?
I'vs seen a lot of Hungarians and Slovenians with Red Hairs,myself being an Italian person?
What could be the reason for that?

 

[MOESAN]

I didn't mention Magyars but yes it's true they have the same "relative density" as Czechs compared to other East Europeans, say about 1,4-1,5% - I had about 0,8% red hairs for allover Yougoslavia, already on a limited sample. Scholars cited 0,3% for Serbs. I have not enough sample for subregions or new countries after downfall Tito's Yougoslavia.
For Slovenians I think something close to 1,2% at the maximum, just a bet.
Western Slavs had a background where Celts and Germanics played a role in some way.

 

[Dalmat]

I didn't mention Magyars but yes it's true they have the same "relative density" as Czechs compared to other East Europeans, say about 1,4-1,5% - I had about 0,8% red hairs for allover Yougoslavia, already on a limited sample. Scholars cited 0,3% for Serbs. I have not enough sample for subregions or new countries after downfall Tito's Yougoslavia.
For Slovenians I think something close to 1,2% at the maximum, just a bet.
Western Slavs had a background where Celts and Germanics played a role in some way.

France is celto-germanic right?
How much red hair french people have?

 

[MOESAN]

France is celto-germanic right?
How much red hair french people have?

In fact the dominant ethnical group was the Celts, Germanic unput is visible spite light enough in Northern and Eastern France (until Savoieand lyonnais)
But in Western Central and Southwest France Celts mixed with Aquitanian-Vasconian pops (roughly said).
The red hairs + reddish %'s in France until recently were very verious.
around 0,6% (0,5 to 0,8%) in Southwest, Southeast, south central (perhaps a little bit more on Atlantic shores?)-
around 0,8% in Corsica
around 1,0% in Central, central-north and central-west, maybe 1,2/1,4% in Île-de-France (around Paris, Paris kept apart)
around 2,0% (1,5 to 2,5%) in central-east, northeast (Champagne, Elsass, Lorraine, Franche-Comté, Savoie, Bourgogne)
around 2,5% in Normandy
around 3,0% in North
around 2,0% in French dialect speaking Brittany (East)
around 3,0% in Breton speaking Brittany (West)
These are my states. Red hairs have declined in France with time if I rely on ancient studies (~1900).
The Breton departments Finistère and Morbihan was then the 1° and the 3° richer ones for France, I don't know which was the 2° then) -
a limited survey found only 1,4% in Normandy but maybe they were speaking of only very 'red' or 'orange' hairs? This survey had very low % too for Highland Scots and Irish men so... It found 2,8% for Wallonia (redder than Belgium Flanders!) what is not so far from my 3,0% for northern France (Flander, Picardy and Artois/Hainaut) - for France the Iberic, Italian and even Polish immigration lowered a bit the %'s - around the 1990's I found 1,4% for allover France sportmen. But I didn't take in account the diverse local densities to produce this global %. I didn't find recent states about red and reddish hairs in France, to compare with my owns.
My states in Brittany, on ordinary pop, give the same numbers, but I stated a lowering among young school children linked to the arrival of a lot of non-Breton people in Brittany. "National" levelling effect.
As a whole, todate, Switzerland and Belgium people have more red hairs than today France.

 

[Dalmat]

It should have 10 times more since those countries have 10% celt- germanic admix at best. So its not celto-germanic, but its more prevalent in Ireland probably because at one point in the past was considered more attractive.

Anyways, Slovenians are light, and have all kinds of light hair variations including ginger, and funny enough, when i imagine stereotypical sloven, its light person, and could be ginger, French, is more med atlantic type

 

[MOESAN]

It should have 10 times more since those countries have 10% celt- germanic admix at best. So its not celto-germanic, but its more prevalent in Ireland probably because at one point in the past was considered more attractive.

Anyways, Slovenians are light, and have all kinds of light hair variations including ginger, and funny enough, when i imagine stereotypical sloven, its light person, and could be ginger, French, is more med atlantic type

Slovenia is a little country. France is big and you have high variations by regions, spite in towns the levelong is strong tending to kind of mean situation. In fact today France in towns absorbed a lot of foreign people, the most from South (Italy, Spain, Portugal, Armenia leaving the Muslsims aside). The only northern immigration has been the Polish one (1920/1930, the most in North and Lorraine). Frenchies are far to correspond to your 'med-atlantic' reduction, according to places.
Slovenians are not "light", they are on the 'middle to dark' side so not far from the current French mean (French people were lightets in past). What we can say is that Slovenians are the lest southern-like people of ex-Yougoslavia concerning pigmentation (so the lightest). They keep on being darker as a whole than Switzerland 'mean' and Ausria people (a bit lighter than darker).
Concerning sexual selection or anykind of selection based upon attractivity, I can say that among ancient Celts, red hairs people were considered as the worst ones, not the contrary! The kept only ONE life to evit hell in myths!

 

[Melkiirs]

In fact the dominant ethnical group was the Celts, Germanic unput is visible spite light enough in Northern and Eastern France (until Savoieand lyonnais)
But in Western Central and Southwest France Celts mixed with Aquitanian-Vasconian pops (roughly said).
The red hairs + reddish %'s in France until recently were very verious.
around 0,6% (0,5 to 0,8%) in Southwest, Southeast, south central (perhaps a little bit more on Atlantic shores?)-
around 0,8% in Corsica
around 1,0% in Central, central-north and central-west, maybe 1,2/1,4% in Île-de-France (around Paris, Paris kept apart)
around 2,0% (1,5 to 2,5%) in central-east, northeast (Champagne, Elsass, Lorraine, Franche-Comté, Savoie, Bourgogne)
around 2,5% in Normandy
around 3,0% in North
around 2,0% in French dialect speaking Brittany (East)
around 3,0% in Breton speaking Brittany (West)
These are my states. Red hairs have declined in France with time if I rely on ancient studies (~1900).
The Breton departments Finistère and Morbihan was then the 1° and the 3° richer ones for France, I don't know which was the 2° then) -
a limited survey found only 1,4% in Normandy but maybe they were speaking of only very 'red' or 'orange' hairs? This survey had very low % too for Highland Scots and Irish men so... It found 2,8% for Wallonia (redder than Belgium Flanders!) what is not so far from my 3,0% for northern France (Flander, Picardy and Artois/Hainaut) - for France the Iberic, Italian and even Polish immigration lowered a bit the %'s - around the 1990's I found 1,4% for allover France sportmen. But I didn't take in account the diverse local densities to produce this global %. I didn't find recent states about red and reddish hairs in France, to compare with my owns.
My states in Brittany, on ordinary pop, give the same numbers, but I stated a lowering among young school children linked to the arrival of a lot of non-Breton people in Brittany. "National" levelling effect.
As a whole, todate, Switzerland and Belgium people have more red hairs than today France.

Out of curiosity how would you say your standards compare with the Fischer and Fischer-Saller scales? There is relatively recent data on Corsica from Marie-Magdeleine Piquet which found 1.1% Fischer-Saller I-VI among 477 20 year-old Corsican males (https://www.persee.fr/doc/bmsap_0037-8984_1968_num_3_3_1417). Tisserand in a report I have not directly located (Étude statistique de la coloration des téguments et de leu nexes chez 4000 adultes, 1951) found 1.4% I-VI among 4000 Parisian adults. Your figures are fairly close in both cases.

Red within the original Fischer Haarfarbentafel scale (1905) includes: #1, a light orange; #2, deep/bright orange; and #3, a brownish orange or perhaps lighter auburn. So these shades are characterized by an orange hue more than a golden or chestnut/russet hue. The brownish shade #3 is by far the most common and the other shades were found much more exceptional. Even in Norway which has a vastly higher RHC rate than average European population Halfdan Bryn found only 0.14% shades #1-2 in his series of Norwegian recruits. It should be notably more common in Norwegian children as red hair has a marked tendency to fade and/or darken with age. Virchow's survey generally found significantly more than 0.14% brandrothe but that concerned only children and relied on the agent's personal conception of bright red which could vary considerably in certain cases (e.g. the drastic ~10x higher figure for Saxe-Coburg-Gotha compared to neighboring states was probably a matter of standards).

The Fischer-Saller scale (1928) includes the deeper golden shades around #9-12 of the original scale, but still excludes chestnut/russet. These strong golden tones were included in the red series in part because they are clearly related in inheritance to the existing red shades. Boris Becker or Erik Bo Andersen are good examples of cases obviously not counted in the red series of the original Fischer scale but definitely included with the Fischer-Saller scale. The largest differences between the two scales are seen in very blond populations especially as children (e.g. the schoolchildren in Cloppenburg observed by Margrit Wagner with 1.3% shades I-III against 4.9% shades IV-VI) but including elevated golden rufous tones in blond or light brown hair will typically lead to a higher percentage regardless. In some samples only dark reds may be found (e.g. M.C. Chamla only found shades I-II in 306 Kabyles) and thus there might not be any difference.

The original Fischer scale used cellulose synthetic hair while the Fischer-Saller scale uses treated real hair. Due to this the luster of the shades are different with the Fischer-Saller scale and there is more variation with lighting. I attatched two photos (close and mid distance) of a Fischer-Saller scale that was for sale in addition the photo of the Fischer scale red series unfaded.

 

[MOESAN]

It should have 10 times more since those countries have 10% celt- germanic admix at best. So its not celto-germanic, but its more prevalent in Ireland probably because at one point in the past was considered more attractive.

Anyways, Slovenians are light, and have all kinds of light hair variations including ginger, and funny enough, when i imagine stereotypical sloven, its light person, and could be ginger, French, is more med atlantic type

France is changing fast. But rural France of the 1970's was still contrasted enough concerning pigmentation, and just a bit lighter than Slovenia as a national mean (very little indeed!). It's true that Slovenia is the lightest new state of ancient Yougoslavia, with some parts of northern Croatia... in France light hair (with constant criteria) runned from 4% to 26% (maybe more in true Flander and Germanic Lorraine?), dark hair from 24% to 55%, red + reddish from 0,6% to 3,0% ! not unified!
Northern and Eastern Frenchies were lighter haired (not for eyes and skin) than Cornish people, Welsh people and Irish people, confirmed by scientists works. Some Pyrenees, Provence, Niçois districkts and Corsica aligned rather with Central Italy (in general!) and Northern and Central Spain among others, less fair than the most of northern Italy.

 

[MOESAN]

It should have 10 times more since those countries have 10% celt- germanic admix at best. So its not celto-germanic, but its more prevalent in Ireland probably because at one point in the past was considered more attractive.

I doubt attractivity of red hairs would be the principal cause of red hairs in Ireland - a time has been when ancient Celts considered that the red haired people had already liven 2 lifes and had then their last chance! today Irish and British people don't consider too well the red haired persons (maybe a bit less hard concerning wives?)

 

[MOESAN]

I'm sorry, in post #8 I repeated myself!

 

[MOESAN]

@Melkiirs
- I ‘ll try to answer you.

- I am an amateur, and I observed on life (common people) and on pictures (sportmen, for the most, more than a picture for a person, preferably on collective pics) -

- my ‘scale’ is y my eye, I regreat I never had the Fisher’s and others scales to compare -

- in my partly mistaken conception, I separated completly the light vs dark categorisation from the redness one. So « reds » did not appear in my dark/light %’s where I found always 100 % without speaking of reds, and the reds %’s concept was apart for me -

- it’s not a genomic exercice but a visual observation one in my personal way of discrimination, I try (my eyes) to divide the reddish input into 8 parts : arbitrary, as well as the scientists scales (I take for proof Fisher produce more than one) – my 1/8 category is very subject to caution, even more when you observe pics which may habe been badly printed (red color forced or limited) : even more reddish I saw people who were reddish on a pic and apparently non reddish on another pic! So, tou need more than a pic to make your opinion.

- concerning Piquet and the Corsicans, 477 men isn’t a big sample, and it had more impact on rare hues as reds than on the allover pop (that said I have even less in some cases) – other works in France found 0,8 % for them, what seems to me closer to reality (but I’ve not enough Corsicans at hand to judge it) -

- I take for ‘red or reddish’ (strongly reddish blonds amids) the people I consided as at least with 3/8 redness/rufosity - it’s very possible, maybe sure, I missed very dark 3/8, even 4/8 or more, on pics, alas !!! - as a whole, the extremely light or dark are more mistaking concerning their redness.

- as you and others say, the rufosity can diminish with age. It can even fade out – in Brittany I know two man who were red haired until their 20’s and turned brown haired, almost without visible reddish hue ; one of them had a brother, red haired too, who kept red haired (I didn’t saw him after his 50’s) – but both reds turned into brown haired has kept their red hair on their body… -

- other observation : as a whole it seems to me red haired people turn grey and then white sooner than the mean population – it affects the isolated red hairs (beard) too, the first ones to whiten in beard -

- as a whole, spite based on relatively small pop’s and the arbitrary definitions, my pigmentation predictions on life and pictures give close results for the same pop – what accounted for me was having a constant criteria if possible -

- I agree the first Fischer ‘s scale was too restrictive and I prefer the Fischer-Saller based on what I kno of Boris Becker who is a true « red » (7/8- 8/8 for me spite he is fair haired otherwise?) - in my old visual conception, Boris Becker is classified among the light haired people in one state, and true red haired in the specific state -

- the states of Virchow I read are without use to my conception – and as you I doubt is Coburg-Saxe-Gotha state would be correct, compared to other regions of Germany - that said in a close enough region (Voralberg, CNE Hessen) Coon found or reported around 4 % of red/reddish hairs if I don’t mistake -

- I think the respective distributions of dark reds, middle reds and light reds is strongly correlated to the distribution of corresponding non red – at the opposite, I see no correlation between these categories (dark to light) and the density of rufosity, unless we take in account the greater difficulty to measure the slight redness among dark hues -



- so my states take in account a relatively large span of rufosity density -

- to make a general sketch I think the most red haired pop’s are in Ireland, Scotland, Mordvins left aside - Askhenazes are also often red haired, maybe a bit more than the most of Germanic countries, some of their regions left aside – My vision of Weslh people is the same as the Beddoe ‘s one : national mean, influenced by the region with high demic density (more : towns with English migrants) are the less « red », the less peopled ones are highly « red », almost as red as the redder ones in Ireland and Scotland – Slavic countries less red – Baltic and southern countries even less red – schematic but globally correct ! -

my little states confirm some studies : at national level, Norway is less red than the other Germanic countries – Flemings are less red than Netherlanders AND than Walloons -

ATW the visual studies od rufosity on hair are a little bit blurred – but the global impression is sensible -

 

[Ivorix]

my maternal grandma is red haired and she got it from her dad and her paternal grandpa who was polish.

 

[Melkiirs]

my maternal grandma is red haired and she got it from her dad and her paternal grandpa who was polish.

Kretuonas2 an individual from the Neolithic Narva culture and found buried in present day Lithuania carried your R142H(rs11547464) variant. This is a video from AndreiDNA regarding his phenotype results:

He had a small amount of Anatolian Hunter-Gatherer admixture in addition to WHG and ANE, so I asked AndreiDNA if the distribution of the R142H variant was related to that component. Today that variant is much more common in Southern Europe and parts of the Middle-East with a significant ANF component than in the Baltic region (as represented by Estonians with gnomAD v2.1.1). This leads me to suspect that the presence of that variant in Kretuonas2 is possibly AHG related versus WHG or ANE. At the same time modern Balts are much more ANF admixed than him, which Andrei mentions. I'm quite curious what his ideas are. I wonder if it was more common in Northern Europe during the Neolithic before the WSH migrations in turn associated with variants now more common like R151C and R160W. Among Sardinians who have very little Steppe admixture R142H does not appear relatively rare compared to those two variants much more widespread in Europe as a whole.

 

[Ivorix]

Kretuonas2 an individual from the Neolithic Narva culture and found buried in present day Lithuania carried your R142H(rs11547464) variant. This is a video from AndreiDNA regarding his phenotype results:

He had a small amount of Anatolian Hunter-Gatherer admixture in addition to WHG and ANE, so I asked AndreiDNA if the distribution of the R142H variant was related to that component. Today that variant is much more common in Southern Europe and parts of the Middle-East with a significant ANF component than in the Baltic region (as represented by Estonians with gnomAD v2.1.1). This leads me to suspect that the presence of that variant in Kretuonas2 is possibly AHG related versus WHG or ANE. At the same time modern Balts are much more ANF admixed than him, which Andrei mentions. I'm quite curious what his ideas are. I wonder if it was more common in Northern Europe during the Neolithic before the WSH migrations in turn associated with variants now more common like R151C and R160W. Among Sardinians who have very little Steppe admixture R142H does not appear relatively rare compared to those two variants much more widespread in Europe as a whole.

Oh wow Melkiirs that's a very interesting information! I guess it makes even more sense know!

I find interesting how the characteristhics of that sample are very similar to how was my great great grandpa, Red haired, Green eyed, very pale but with freckles too, but he was quite short though.