Deaf marriages=increased chance of deaf kids
- Thread starter Miss-Delectable
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Lorias1228
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Aids, Bubonic Plague and Martha's Vineyard, Mass/Sandy River, Maine
Along the same lines researchers know that there are a population of people who no matter what they do from sexual encounters to intraveinous drug use, these people can not contract AIDS. Researchers started looking into why this was true and they found that back in the 1600's in England during the bubonic (Black Death) Plague that if a person survived their immune system changed. The found that in these English hamlets that the survivors married survivors and this helped to perpetuate the mutation of the genes that protected against Bubonic Plague. When researchers compared the data they found with the genealogical descendents of those people they found that it was these same people the descentents of the bubonic plague surviors that could not contract AIDS.
But this is also how there became an Island of Deaf people living on Martha's Vineyard. A man who was a carrier for deafness migrated from Kent, England (in the weald Meaning wooded area) to the New Colony (aka America) in the 1600's. Eventually one of his descendents migrated to Martha's Vineyard where families behaved much like they did in the hamlets of England where 1st cousins married first cousins over and over again. At one point one out of every four children born in 1 town on Martha's vineyard was born Deaf. THere was a recessive gene for Deafness on the island it took both parents being carriers (ie deaf, hard of hearing or even hearing but a carrier of the gene) to have a child that was Deaf. Some of the descendents of Martha's Vineyard moved to Sandy River< Maine where they continued the intermarriages but to a lesser extent.
It is the children of MV and Sandy Rier that for the most part made of the greatest preportion of students at the Hartford Conneticut School for the Deaf founded by Clerc and Gallaudet. It is because of the school that today there are no hereditarily Deaf persons now living on the island. THe Deaf children from MV married Deaf children from off island. Because the Deaf children from off island that were not from MV or Sandy River had different types of hereditary deafness and carried many different recessive genes for Deafness when they married the children from MV. or SR the recessive genes died out. It takes two of the same kind of recessive gene to perpetuate recessive Deafness.
So if you are from a family that has genetic Deafness it doesn't necessarily mean your children will be Deaf if you marry another Deafie. Only if Deafness is a Dominate trait in your family will the chances be great that your children will be Deaf. Only 10 % of all Deaf children have Deaf parents. 90 % have parents with no reason to believe their child will be born Deaf or become Deaf later.
Myself I have a disease called Osteogeneis imperfecta. I'm the first in my family to have this disease. I am a mutation. My latent hearing loss comes from having Dentiogenesis that usually comes with the OI. I've only had a diagnosis for 2 years. I have a BS in Biology and loved genetics so this topic is fascinating to me.
Lori
Along the same lines researchers know that there are a population of people who no matter what they do from sexual encounters to intraveinous drug use, these people can not contract AIDS. Researchers started looking into why this was true and they found that back in the 1600's in England during the bubonic (Black Death) Plague that if a person survived their immune system changed. The found that in these English hamlets that the survivors married survivors and this helped to perpetuate the mutation of the genes that protected against Bubonic Plague. When researchers compared the data they found with the genealogical descendents of those people they found that it was these same people the descentents of the bubonic plague surviors that could not contract AIDS.
But this is also how there became an Island of Deaf people living on Martha's Vineyard. A man who was a carrier for deafness migrated from Kent, England (in the weald Meaning wooded area) to the New Colony (aka America) in the 1600's. Eventually one of his descendents migrated to Martha's Vineyard where families behaved much like they did in the hamlets of England where 1st cousins married first cousins over and over again. At one point one out of every four children born in 1 town on Martha's vineyard was born Deaf. THere was a recessive gene for Deafness on the island it took both parents being carriers (ie deaf, hard of hearing or even hearing but a carrier of the gene) to have a child that was Deaf. Some of the descendents of Martha's Vineyard moved to Sandy River< Maine where they continued the intermarriages but to a lesser extent.
It is the children of MV and Sandy Rier that for the most part made of the greatest preportion of students at the Hartford Conneticut School for the Deaf founded by Clerc and Gallaudet. It is because of the school that today there are no hereditarily Deaf persons now living on the island. THe Deaf children from MV married Deaf children from off island. Because the Deaf children from off island that were not from MV or Sandy River had different types of hereditary deafness and carried many different recessive genes for Deafness when they married the children from MV. or SR the recessive genes died out. It takes two of the same kind of recessive gene to perpetuate recessive Deafness.
So if you are from a family that has genetic Deafness it doesn't necessarily mean your children will be Deaf if you marry another Deafie. Only if Deafness is a Dominate trait in your family will the chances be great that your children will be Deaf. Only 10 % of all Deaf children have Deaf parents. 90 % have parents with no reason to believe their child will be born Deaf or become Deaf later.
Myself I have a disease called Osteogeneis imperfecta. I'm the first in my family to have this disease. I am a mutation. My latent hearing loss comes from having Dentiogenesis that usually comes with the OI. I've only had a diagnosis for 2 years. I have a BS in Biology and loved genetics so this topic is fascinating to me.
Lori