Markers / Gene
SLC24A5
One position in this gene is readable from a home DNA test.
One of the biggest switches for skin tone
rs1426654 · chr15:48,426,484 · A/G · evidence: established
A single letter change in SLC24A5 accounts for a large share of the difference in skin pigmentation between European and West African populations. It is one of the strongest single-gene effects on any visible human trait, and it swept through Europe in the last ten thousand years.
| If you carry | What it means |
|---|---|
| No copies | Darker skin version, two copies |
| One copy | One of each |
| Two copies | Lighter skin version, two copies |
| Ancestry group | A (the effect version) | |
|---|---|---|
| African | 7.4% | |
| American | 58.9% | |
| East Asian | 1.2% | |
| European | 99.7% | |
| South Asian | 68.5% |
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