[Quiet Man Cometh]

Choco, seems odd that your skin wouldn't absorb sunlight but I doubt that has to do with colour. Lighter skin absorbs more than dark skin. Evolutionary trait that came up when people moved into colder areas and started covering up. Hence Nordic and celtic folk tend to be pastey white. My dad cetainly is (has his mother's complexion) and neither of us like being in the sun much. We burn like crazy and just plain dont tolerate the heat well.

My family is pretty much all shades of blonde to brown. My brother's father's side has more scot so there are some serious red heads over there. My dad has his mother's strawberry blonde hair which I had too when I was young. It's darker now, but apparently my hair likes to change colour as my roomate often asked me if I had anything done since there were days where it looked more blonde or more red. My mom noticed too. My mother's hair was blonde but went quite dark after she had kids. That's typical though, so I hear.

Not sure what anecdote to share, Scylla. There are a few and some are lengthy. ;). A lot of them have to do with my grandparents on my mother's side. Her mother's parents died when sheh was young, so her elderly aunts came from England to look after her. They were particularly insistent that she act properly and not become too "colonial." They had a summer cabin not far from what her aunts assumed was an orphanage. Said "orphanage" was my grandfather's home. ;). He was one of eight kids and the family farmed potatos. Story is that the patriarch of the family originally came to Canada from Ireland to escape the famine. He would have been my great, great, great, great (I think) grandfather.