Squibs

[genius24]

Sorry if this has already been discussed.
I was wondering if you were to have a Muggle father and a Muggle-born mother would you have a greater chance of becoming a Squib? My theory behind this is that a Muggle wouldn't have a magic gene and a Muggle-Born's family wouldn't have a magic gene except for the magical person themselves.
so would you have a greater chance of becoming a Squib?

[featherfish81]

Interesting question. I'm not sure if it works exactly like that (dominant and recessive genes), because the gene can surface after many generations. For all we know, the Muggle father would also have magical genes somewhere in the past. But it would be interesting to know the actual numbers.

[merrymarge]

Fifty -fifty! (my rule of odds). It's really a toss-up. I'm sure the Ministry of Magic must have some sort of record of this. They have been studying just about everything else.

[Quickquill]

Originally Posted by merrymarge

Fifty -fifty! (my rule of odds). It's really a toss-up. I'm sure the Ministry of Magic must have some sort of record of this. They have been studying just about everything else.

I agree. You can't make a proper estimate of the probabilities without more data. Besides, the "Muggle born" is still a fully magical witch or wizard so why should the child of a Muggle and a Muggle born have a greater chance of being non magical than any other wizard / muggle pairing. I don't think that the non magical offspring of such a pairing can technically be considered a Squib though. A Squib is the non magical offspring of a magical family. In a mixed family, you might expect some of the children to turn out "normal". But the muggle parent certainly wouldn't consider it an abberration.

[ally_xx]

Just like Hermione, we don't hear of any magical history in her family, she says so in PS: "There are no witches or wizards in my family so I was ever so surprised when I got my letter"

Unless of course she has ancestors from waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back?

[Spacecadet]

Im not 100% sure what you are asking, but you couldnt be born to muggle parents and be a squib. A squib is someone born to magical parents that cant use magic themselves. Unless you are asking is you were to have one non magical parent and one magical parent that was born out of a muggle family. Its an interesting theory, but im not sure if that would be the case.

without getting too technical ive seen debates around that is a magic gene dominant or recessive, well it can kind of be neither because you have both magical people being born to pure muggles and nonmagical people being born to pure magic users. The first implies that the magic gene is recessive, and the second implies that it is dominant. However if you look at being a squib as being a genetic anomaly (because it is rare) im not sure your chances of becoming a squib would be any higher if you were born to pure magical parents vs 1 muggle and one magical parent vs parents who were one a muggle and the second a magic user born from a muggle family.

[Grimmodr]

This is quite interesting Maybe its just luck or aptitude which determines these things, wasnt Argus Filch a pureblood? And yet he is a squib, we could take a certain group of Wizards muggle and pureblood and you would see variation in what they were good at and what they werent. They would also have some traits from their parents, like Harry is good at Quidditch as was his father. Muggles in some way may have an advantage as they have nothing initially to base any ability of wizarding on.

[Mimosa]

Originally Posted by genius24

Sorry if this has already been discussed.
I was wondering if you were to have a Muggle father and a Muggle-born mother would you have a greater chance of becoming a Squib? My theory behind this is that a Muggle wouldn't have a magic gene and a Muggle-Born's family wouldn't have a magic gene except for the magical person themselves.
so would you have a greater chance of becoming a Squib?

The laws of genetics don't always work like expected, so we don't know. But someone born in a Muggle family (the witch mother being Muggle-born), the kids would just be considered Muggles, wouldn't they? Squibs are, in fact, Muggles as far as their magical abilities, or lack thereof, are concerned, aren't they? The Muggle father wouldn't even know the word "Squib", to him the kid would be "normal". The witch mother, having been born and raised a Muggle herself until she got her Hogwarts letter, wouldn't be as upset about it (if at all) as a wizarding family would.

My point being, we don't know whether the kid would end up a Squib or a wizard or witch, but if s/he doesn't develop magical abilities, it makes very little difference one way or the other.

Now if one kid is non-magical with a magical sibling (like Petunia and Lily) that would be a problem, as it was for Petunia.

Getting back to the original question but turning it around, how often do Muggle families produce a witch or wizard? Often enough, apparently. We have Lily, Hermione, the Creevey brothers, Justin Finch-Fetchley, Dean Thomas, I may have forgotten some others. What are the odds, genetically speaking, of that happening? And yet it happens often enough.

From that evidence, I'd say the magical gene seems to be dominant. Maybe the wizarding community wouldn't be dying out the way they seem to be in the books if the purebloods hadn't been so obsessive about keeping that "purity", because all the marriages with Muggles we know of produce witches and wizards, not Squibs. In the books, it seems Squibs only occur in pureblood families. That's something to think about.

[Labrynth]

We were only shown 2 squibs in the series, Filch and Mrs. Figg... were we ever told anything about their ancestry?

[GriseldatheGood]

Usually when this one comes up it is concluded that magic is recessive, as muggle-borns are so much more common than squibs. (So a marriage of two heterogeneous people of muggle phenotype, Mm x Mm, with M being the muggle gene and m being the magical gene, would have a twenty-five percent chance of muggle-borns whereas a magical couple would have to be mm x mm and only produce squibs occasionally as a mutation). In this case a muggle-muggleborn relationship might be either Mm x mm or MM x mm, depending on whether the muggle was homogeneous or heterogeneous. The former would result in half magical, half muggle children and the latter in all muggle children.

Of course, although we know the wizard gene is incapable of incomplete dominance (you're either a wizard or you aren't) you can't out the possibility of multiple alleles and other complications.

[Anhelda]

Originally Posted by Mimosa

how often do Muggle families produce a witch or wizard? Often enough, apparently. We have Lily, Hermione, the Creevey brothers, Justin Finch-Fetchley, Dean Thomas, I may have forgotten some others.

Just a quick note to say that Dean Thomas' biological father was a wizard, so he's not really a muggleborn; he's a half-blood. His family background is described on jkrowling.com in the extras section.

[arithmancer]

Originally Posted by genius24

My theory behind this is that a Muggle wouldn't have a magic gene and a Muggle-Born's family wouldn't have a magic gene except for the magical person themselves.
so would you have a greater chance of becoming a Squib?

I think the answer is no. The Muggleborn's family would actually have to have the genes, because, where else did the Muggleborn get them?

[Daggerstone]

I'm not 100% sure on this, but magical ability in Muggles seems to be the result of a dormant gene. If I was to base my assumptions on the book info, I'd also say the gene itself is dominant rather than recessive, as all progeny of muggleborns we get to see are wizards/witches themselves.

It could be all the Raves I hang around with, but I'd love to get to the bottom of this (though we lack the relevant canon info)... what are the environmental conditions that trigger the magical gene? And how/why was dormancy induced in the first place? Was it a biological response to monotheism/witch-hunts - some sort of defense mechanism? In which part of the world does it occur the most? And if it's really triggered by external conditions, could they be reproduced and magical population enlarged accordingly?

Err... yeah. I definitely need to stop slithering around the eagles.

[wickedwickedboy]

I think JKR should have just left it as an unknown magical occurrence. Attempting to link it with genes just confuses matters, imo.

What is interesting is what a child would be considered if it was born of a muggleborn wizard and witch. It remains muggleborn? Like if Lily married Ted Tonks and had a child. Kinda weird since both its parents are wizards...ummmmmmm

[ADoe4Lilly]

Originally Posted by ally_xx

Just like Hermione, we don't hear of any magical history in her family, she says so in PS: "There are no witches or wizards in my family so I was ever so surprised when I got my letter"

Unless of course she has ancestors from waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back?

Agreed, I was just about to post a something along the lines as this. I Don't think the child would come out a squib because as said there from magical families. Like Merope. Both her parents were pure blood. So the child would either be non magical or magical. I don't really see a grey area there.

[Raviolissimo]

Originally Posted by genius24

Sorry if this has already been discussed.
I was wondering if you were to have a Muggle father and a Muggle-born mother would you have a greater chance of becoming a Squib? My theory behind this is that a Muggle wouldn't have a magic gene and a Muggle-Born's family wouldn't have a magic gene except for the magical person themselves.
so would you have a greater chance of becoming a Squib?

i'm muggle born and i have no magical powers so i guess i'm a Squib.

i think your hypothesis has merit.

[EvilRaven]

Originally Posted by Labrynth

We were only shown 2 squibs in the series, Filch and Mrs. Figg... were we ever told anything about their ancestry?

Oh! Don't Forget Ron's cousin who's an accountant.

WOuld a Muggleborn parents both have the recessive Magic gene for the child to be a witch/wizard?

Could there be two types of wizard genes? The Dominant one which is found through the wizarding world and a Recessive one that would show up in Muggleborns?

If a squib had a Muggle Gene dominate then married a muggle and through the generations one person with the Recessive Magic Gene married another descended of a squib with that gene.... I don't know. It's been too long since I did biology, lol.

[SevrusSnape]

I dunno it seems like it would just be a toss up, seems like anything can happen with any situation and who knows what situation has a greater chance just for the fact that two muggles can have a magic child so having one muggle and one magic parent seems like that would have better odds of a magic child

[TheGreen1]

Personally, I think it's more of a special "Mutation". In fact, if one has read the X-men Series, one might be able to classify Witches and Wizards as Mutants, since they are Human, with special abilities granted by birth.

I assume the Wizarding Gene is Dominant, and that a Wizard or Witch has a much easier time creating a Magical Child, even with a Muggle, than Two Muggles Do. What also seems interesting to me at least, is that two muggles who have produced a Wizard or Witch, do not always have subsequent Magical Children. Take for instance, Petunia and Lily. Assuming that both are biological sisters, one finds it interesting that Petunia is but a normal Muggle, while Lily is a witch who possesses the Magical Gene. So why is it that Lily has the gene, and not Petunia? I refer back to my original statement reguarding Muggle-born Wizards and Witches, that it is a genetic mutation that causes magical kids to sometimes be born to muggles.

[dobby_rocks]

I think anyone who has a magical parent regardless if their parent is half-blood, muggleborn or pureblood that child has much greater chance of also being magical. Rowling said that magic gene is dominat. It’s under extra section Squibs.

magic is a dominant and resilient gene.

I believe she also said somewhere that most muggleborns do have wizarding ancestry even if it is very very very very far back. Most Squibs probably adapt into the muggle world I also got the impression that Flich and Ms Figg were rare squibs who found a way to remain in the wizarding world or at least partly. That said this squibs who adapt into muggle world/life still have the magical gene in them that can and will pass to their descendants and it might come out generations later in say their great (20) grandchild. Genes are funny and you can have traits that will pop up generations later. It true when they say a gene can not be breed out of someone. Even if it does not show up in them it could pop up in a future ancestor. Molly squib cousins and his muggle wife had a magical daughter.

I would guess someone whose parents were both mugglborns then their child(ren) if magical would just be considered a half-blood.