Markers / Gene
IRF4
One position in this gene is readable from a home DNA test.
Freckles, and hair that darkens with age
rs12203592 · chr6:396,321 · C/T · evidence: established
IRF4 helps control pigment production. This change is one of the strongest known predictors of childhood freckling, and it is also linked to hair that starts fair and darkens through childhood.
| If you carry | What it means |
|---|---|
| No copies | Freckling less likely |
| One copy | Freckling more likely |
| Two copies | Freckling most likely |
| Ancestry group | T (the effect version) | |
|---|---|---|
| African | 0.8% | |
| American | 7.2% | |
| East Asian | 0.0% | |
| European | 11.6% | |
| South Asian | 0.6% |
1000 Genomes Project phase 3, via Ensembl, retrieved 2026-09-23. These groupings are coarse and flatten a great deal of internal diversity, particularly within Africa. A variant being common somewhere tells you where a piece of your ancestry probably comes from, and nothing else.
Where this gene fits
If you have taken a home DNA test, these positions are already in your file.
Read my file