vcheavy

11-24-2009, 10:27 PM

Hmm back in the days when eugenics was popular in the US they would put out maps of where blue-eyes were common. I believe the idea was that as blue-eyes meant are recessive and predominately white more blue-eyes meant whiter. Granted two brown-eyed people can have a blue-eyed child, if they both carry the gene, and it turns out to be more complex than once thought.
Blue eyes are believed to descend from a genetic mutation in a population around the Black Sea between 6-10 thousand years ago. They are most common among Northern Europeans. My guess would therefore be that they are the most common in the Dakotas and Iowa. These states are over 90% white and mostly received Germanic or Scandinavian immigration.
I can't vouch for accuracy, but the following has some (admittedly old) stats on hair and eye-color. Approximately .63% of black males it list have blue eyes while only .14% of black females did. Of non-brown eyes is black and hazel seems to be the most common among blacks. Harold Ford is a notable black person to have naturally green eyes. Around 2.75% of Hispanic males and 2.2% of Hispanic females are listed as blue-eyed. Many Hispanics have some German or Basque ancestry and Cubans I believe are often fairly 'light.' The Irish are tops for green and blue eyes, meaning I should add Maine and Vermont as potential places with many blue-eyed people. Germans are tops with hazel so that might be common in the Dakotas. People of Irish descent are noticeably more likely to have green-eyes than Germans with English-descent closer to Irish on 'green-eyes.' So New England and Appalachia might be the place for green-eyes.
Gene Expression: NLSY blogging: Eye and hair color of Americans