Hair colour of family members

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Nope, I'm Asian. Chinese with some Turk blood and ashk Jew (perhaps) blended in.

Hmmm.... People with red hair tend to have the lightest skin. Light skin burns very easily and often does not tan. If you have skin that burns and rarely tans you are going to wear lots of sunscreen. Sunscreen blocks the production of vitamin D. Could this be more evidence that vitamin D deficiency, maybe of mothers during pregnancy or children in their youth, causes autism?

The wikipedia article on red hair is quite good and would answer some of the questions here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_hair

Wikipedia states that only 1-2% of the general population has red hair, so our informal survey here is showing a much higher percentage of red heads than the general population which I find interesting. The country with the highest percentage of red heads in the world is Scotland and they only have 13% (40% are carriers of the recessive allele). We aren't far off that mark.

The red hair allele is recessive so in order to have red hair you have to receive a red hair allele from both parents, not just one. However, neither parent has to have red hair but both have to be carriers of the recessive gene.

It is very interesting too the connection of red heads to pain sensitivity as this is supposed to be another common trait of aspies.

The Neanderthals are thought to have inter-bred with Homo sapiens soon after they migrated from Africa into Europe and Asia. I found the discussion of the various cultures (not just northern European cultures) that have red hair now and in their histories.

I wanted to also mention that there is evidence that Neanderthals had about the same ratio of right-handedness to left-handedness as Homo sapiens do today (9:1 if I remember correctly) and I don't think it is linked to the same genes causing red hair, fair skin, light eyes, etc. The evidence for the same ratio was compelling... it was from a study on how Neanderthal meat tools were used.

I am African American

As a red-head I find this survey interesting... but without a control study the results seem meaningless to me.

The persons who participated were not random. Answering the survey was voluntary, i.e., some people took the time to stop by and answer, others passed it by, figuring they had better ways to spend their time. Is it not reasonable to assume that a red-head, or relative of a red-head, would be more likely to CARE, more likely to take part in the study?

I would have to argue that some, if not all, the higher fraction of red-heads recorded is simply because the survey question was more attractive to red-headed people, as it would be on a website unrelated to autism.

Just for fun:

My eldest son is a real red head. He was born with course, curly red hair that has never changed. Red beard and hairy red legs and arms.
My youngest son has red highlights but grows a red beard. My dad had dark brown hair but grows a red beard. My brother is blond and has a lot of red in his beard. I am blonde but have all sorts of highlights and people have argued over whether I am a red head or a blonde.

I had a first cousin with hair as red as my son's. My maternal great-grandmothers both had red hair - it is the deep auburn red. Many of my great aunts and uncles on both sides had red hair and children in their lines with red hair (they had big families).

I'm brunette. My brother has kind of gingery hair, but I wouldn't call it red, so I said "no one in my family...".

What does the study say about the fully ethnic Chinese, Black, etc people with autism who almost certainly don't have red hair in their family?

I have met more non-Autistics with red hair, and I have met no Autistics with red hair at all.

My sister and I both have brown hair and my mom has black hair that's slowly turning gray.

My dad has a red and white and brown beard and some red um, arm hair. His head hair is dark brown streaked w/ grey. My uncle has red hair. My brother's hair was strawberry blond as a baby, but there is no trace of red in his hair now. That is it as far as I know.

The only redhead I am aware of in my family is my great-grandfather on my paternal grandmother's side. Most everybody on my dad's side is blonde or light brown. I'm the only true brunette of all the cousins on my dad's side, although most of them that were born blonde have gone dark as they have gotten older.

On Mom's side there are a lot of dark brunettes with very little in the way of red highlights. So no, I guess the "red hair equals autism" doesn't really work in my family. Then again, maybe it does...I'm not officially diagnosed as Asperger's yet. So even though I have about a billion of the traits necessary for diagnosis, maybe I'm not.

I have Auburn hair. I don't know if I should say yes or not. INTERESTINGLY Neither of my parents have any red in their hair. However I have a great grandparent, (Or possibly great great...) that had bright red hair.