• Question: If siblings are half siblings, could you tell they were blood related through their DNA?

    Asked by 438rgah37 to Nicholas on 6 Mar 2017.
    • Photo: Nicholas Younger

      Nicholas Younger answered on 6 Mar 2017:

      YES! There are a few ways of doing this. But the easiest way is looking at parts of DNA which are naturally different between any 2 random people.

      There are some bits of DNA which come in different versions, and these control things like eye colour, hair colour, if you have ear lobes or not, if you can roll your tongue – things like that, that are different between people.

      If you looked at all of these bits of DNA from 2 strangers, there wouldn’t be many that were similar. But if 2 people were related then there would be a lot that were similar.

      If you have DNA from the parents too you can tell which parent gave you which bits of DNA

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