How common is red hair in your ethnicity?

[Melkiirs]

Not very common, but not really hard to find either. In a (native) crowd you`ll almost always spot someone with true red hair.
As for regions, cant really tell, it`s pretty evenly spread, at least in the western part. The further you go east, the less frequently it becomes.

Northwest Germans are the closest genetically among ethnic Germans to migration period and likely Roman period Germanic tribes like the Alemanni or Saxons. A common description recorded in Tacitus' Germania was rutilae comae which translates to golden-red or reddish blond. Beddoe found this golden-red hair was not surprising among Germans most common in Lower Saxony and Westphalia in Northwest Germany even higher than in the Low Countries:

"There is little in Holland ( 1 · 81 ) and not much in Flanders ( 2 · 18 ) ; but in Westphalia and other parts of the old Saxon land I found as much as 3.8 per cent . The German red , however , usually verges on pale yellow ; and the old Saxon land I found as much as 3.8 per cent; and the great unpopularity of the colour in Germany led to its being almost ignored by Virchow's schoolmaster - agents ."

Possibly around 5% of children in the area have golden-red hair according to Fischer-Saller scale. Margrit Wagner found 4.9% Fischer-Saller IV-VI among 2004 schoolchildren from Cloppenburg, Lower Saxony (https://www.jstor.org/stable/25754548). Deeper reds I-III were 1.3%, so the golden-red is the typical shade. Virchow included all schoolchildren with hair lighter than chestnut as fair provided it was not very red (brandrothe) and found only 0.3% bright red in Prussia. Regardless of location it was found less than 1% usually by a large margin. A huge study of 15,575 Viennese from infant to 60 from the 1970s (https://books.google.com/books?id=fL...2QQ6AF6BAgHEAI) found just below this in Fischer-Saller shade I which is not quite bright orange like Fischer #2 but clearly the reddest of the six shades. Virchow's general findings for brandrothe thus appear to be reasonably logical.

[Melkiirs]

What's the frequency for Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England? Is Udmurtia also comparable to the British Isles?

With Bryn's work I know the exact Fischer shades recorded. There is little scaled material available for British Isles but there is a large reflectometry study by E. Sunderland. Probably not more than 1% bright red for adults in England at least overall. In the Sunderland study including 1000 British soldiers not just English but also 105 Scots and 53 Welsh the average of "true reds" distinct from reddish-browns using an alternative R statistic from an earlier study by Gardener & McAdam came to 1.2%. Very bright red is likely mostly above 1% among Insular Celts.

In terms of Fischer #1-3 Udmurts are certainly as red as the British Isles. If Fischer #3 light auburn (medium to light brown with prominent red element) is excluded I suspect the lighter shades #1-2 would run lower compared to Insular Celts given the general darker pigmentation of Udmurts relative to the British Isles.

This table was complied by past user Laag:


5.9% Fischer #1-3 found by Zam only has comparison with Insular Celtic populations.

[Your Old Comrade]

A quick Google search says between 2 to 4 percent.

[Melkiirs]

White Americans of mostly mixed British and German heritage (typical Midwestern Protestant) are likely around 3-4% reddish (not just clear red included in Fischer #1-3) Fischer-Saller I-VI (read light to dark here) as young adults. This is from a study of genetic traits in American college students at Ohio State University by David C. Rife from 1948. Students were separated by religion with Protestant students clearly best represented at 310 students:

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/...jpa.1330060110

It will be higher among Whites from other regions of the U.S. with a more consistent British Isles background. Perhaps 4-5%.

[Sarin]

Crossed path with a larger number but yet to come across a ginger . Light brown at most among rare few .

[Flashball]

We have no study (21th century) on the rate of (fully expressed) redheads among ethnic French people from France (so not Corsica) having 8/8 of their ancestors in France, so I don't know.

[nittionia]

I used to have red hair and then it changed to blonde

[Melkiirs]

Russki asked me to post details regarding the difference between Ethnic Russians and native Volga-Ural populations overall in rufosity. Although I'm not Russian I agreed to post this on his behalf.

In 1921 the American Relief Administration which was active in the Soviet Tatar Republic decided to carry out a survey of the physical development of children of different nationalities living in the region in Kazan and county towns. In addition to the main focus of weight and sitting height to determine malnutrition, other observations including hair and eye color using Fischer and Martin scales were executed for a certain number of the surveyed children. For hair color 595 ethnic Russian schoolchildren, 287 Jewish schoochildren, and 280 Kazan Tatar schoolchildren were observed. The Jewish and Kazan Tatar schoochildren were both found the have about twice the proportion of clear red Fischer #1-3 (1.0% and 1.1% respectively) as the ethnic Russians (0.5%). So it is relatively rare among Russians as children.
https://books.google.com/books?id=t_...%25%22&f=false

The other later survey including ethnic Russians in the Volga-Ural region executed by Estonian anthropologist Karin Mark involving 558 adults for red hair found 0.7% clear red. If you exclude the three of four cases occurring in Igra rural Udmurtia likely of partial Udmurt ancestry (with the group being vastly more rufous than ethnic Russians) the percentage of clear red in adults is closer to 0.2%. Dr. Victor Kretzer found this same percentage of distinctive red among 500 ethnic Russians from Latgale, so it it likely fairly typical for adult Russians in general. 0.2% Fischer #1-3 is below the majority of non-Russian Volga-Ural ethnic groups based on Mark's work, so it is the region overall and not just specific groups which are relatively rufous in a Russian context.
https://dspace.ut.ee/items/b83366fa-...b-393e0485d5a2

Russki made a thread last summer about Udmurts having elevated Yamnaya admixture relative to typical Eastern Europeans and Baltic genetic drift reducing rufosity in the region:
https://www.theapricity.com/forum/sh...1-4-East-Asian

I assume he suspects that this possibility is not limited to Udmurts and shared to a certain degree between populations with native Volga-Ural ancestry before Russian settlement.

[Rædwald]

I used to have red hair and then it changed to blonde

My brother was born blonde, and became red aha

[Creoda]

It will be higher among Whites from other regions of the U.S. with a more consistent British Isles background. Perhaps 4-5%.

Yes. Growing up in an Anglo-Celtic area it seemed standard to have 1 redhead in a class (of around 20), so about 5% is has always intuitively seemed right. Reddish-brown shades excepted.