Sunday, January 06, 2013

Grandma Jean and genetic traits

I was over at Facebook recently, and my cousin had put up a photo of her daughter and granddaughter.

I commented on her photo, saying "Oh my, your mum is never far away there" and then I cringed.

You see, her mum is my aunt - my dad's sister.  One thing that is for sure and certain on that side of the family tree is that a fair percentage of the fruit have fairly strong characteristics.

Brown eyes.  Cow eyelashes.  Well defined chin point.  Stubborn jaw.

'Salina looks exactly like a cross between my sister and my sister outlaw - honestly, either of them could go off with her and never get questioned on connections.  

Paris looks very much like her dad - a much smaller, younger female version of him, to be fair, but I didn't get a great deal of look in there.  Not that I am in any way complaining.

While I don't look exactly like my cousin or my cousin's daughter or my cousin's granddaughter or my aunt - or indeed another of my cousins and several of the next generation - it wouldn't take a laboratory to ascertain that we are all related.

Brown eyes.  Cow eyelashes.  Well defined chin point.  Stubborn jaw.

When I was a child, people would always comment on "how much she looks like Jean".  

Whenever we went down to visit her, her friends would say hello in the street and comment on her carbon copy.

I even visited an old people's home (through school) when I was 14 and a complete stranger said "do you know Jean (her maiden name)?" - he hadn't seen her for 60 years at that point.

So while my body has suffered from diets and depressions and pregnancies and good living; while my hair has been long, short, shorn, black, purple, red, brindle and grey (until I colour it again); and although I have had jaw surgery for dental work when I was much younger - it has not changed and will never change one big thing.

I still look like my grandmother - perhaps a fatter, longer-haired, pointier-nosed version for the 21st century, but just like her - just like my aunt, my cousin, her daughter and her granddaughter.

And the scariest thing is I have a fairly good idea of what I will look like when I am old.

So - does your family harbour its own doppelgangers, or do the genes allow the blend to smoosh more easily?

3 comments:

Rootietoot said...

Oh gosh yes...I look precisely like my Grandmother, only taller, and my aunt, only shorter. When people see me at my son's workplace, they'll say "You must be Will's mother." Our other sons look a lot like my husband. But then people thought my husband was my brother before we married (they knew I had a brother but had never met him).

BB said...

Well you could certainly never been mistaken for anyone OTHER than Grandma J's descendant. No doubt. How bout me though? Most of local townsfolk mistook me for my aunt's progeny - the one married to Dad's brother. (i.e. No relation!). She probably wasn't thrilled either considering I am only a dozen years younger than her!! LOL.
:-)
BB

Debby said...

I am my father's. When I was a child, people would look at me and say, "You must be Jerry's girl..." or when we moved back to where my parents are from, I went to the school where he had gone as a boy, having some of the same teachers. They called me Jerry. I think that if I ever stop waxing, I know exactly what--- and who --- I would look like.