From the mutant gallery

A little more than a year ago my son took great pleasure in National Geographic's assertion that redheads came from a mutant gene. Well, more accurately, that red hair is caused by a mutated gene.

I let him have his fun, but what I didn't find particularly amusing was the statement, in the same article, that redheads would be extinct by the year 2100. (I read it at the time but can no longer find it online -- September 2007) The author went on to say that the last redheaded baby would be born in 2060.

Not if my family has any say in the matter.

Attend any Rossiter family reunion and you know where you are: although neither my father nor any of his three sisters had red hair (I don't think so -- not that I remember, anyway) of the 15 grandchildren on the Rossiter side, eight of us have some shade of red hair. My brother, one of the brunettes, made up for it by marrying a redhead and having two redheaded daughters.

Get to the great-grandchildren and -- unbelievably -- the great-great-grandchildren and the numbers just keep climbing.

With the news that we may be going extinct, I've set about a personal unscientific study of sorts. For the last 18 months I've been looking around, watching people and trying to judge for myself if the redhead is a disappearing breed.

What I've noticed, outside my own family, is that there are still many men and women with hints of red or completely red hair, red beards. A friend and former co-worker had a baby last year -- a cute little strawberry blonde. My cousin had a new granddaughter last year -- another redhead.

I see more redheaded adults, and watch -- to his dismay -- as my son's hair grows more and more strawberry all the time.

Extinction? Not hardly.