The other day, while reading a Newsweek article on Apple News, I discovered that my eyes colour was probably quite rare. It says that green is the most rare eye colour. It got me thinking. “Are they” ? Green, I mean. I always thought that they were greyish green or greenish grey but I never really gave much attention to it. I tried to look in the mirror but that’s difficult when you suffer from myopia. So I took a picture and I started looking into the subject. Unfortunately, nuance of colours are always difficult to determine and label…
According to the article “The rarest eye color in the world, and why so few people have it”, around 2 percent of the population worldwide have green eyes as a result of complex genetic factors as well as geographical and population-specific variations that affect the amount of melanin in the iris. The most common eyes colour in the world, at 79 percent, is brown. The second-rarest eye colour, affecting 3 percent of the population, is grey.
According to 24andMe my genetics make me most likely to have blue or green eyes (52% of participants with similar genetics have blue eyes, 21% greenish blue eyes and 17% green eyes). Eyes with light colours (blue or green) are originating from Northern Europe and mine are probably due to my Norman ancestors (according to 24andMe my ancestry composition is 81.9% Northwestern European [Scandinavian countries, British Isles, Germany, France], more precisely 46.8 % French & German particularly Normandy and 24.5 % British & Irish). Indeed, my ancestors from my mother’s side came to Quebec from St-Vivien near Rouen in Normandie around 1660s and got established in Sillery before moving to Lotbinière and finally Yamachiche (my mother was born not far from there in Saint-Barnabé). On my father’s side my ancestor was born in Brésolettes near Tourouve in the province of Perche (now the department of Orne) just south of Normandie and he came to Canada in 1641 taking a land in Beauport (before slowly going south from a generation to another and finally ending in Montreal). So both my maternal and paternal direct ancestors came from the Normandie area.
In the end, what colour are my eyes ? Both genetics and genealogy seem to confirm that they are indeed green. When we look at them, depending of the light, they appear greenish grey [greyish green?] or olive green. They are definitely more green than blue. What do you think ?
Whatever their colour they are one of the most precious parts of me.
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