So, I have a 'mixed' race. Half Elf, half human. I've had them for a while now, but today, I realized something.

Would they, over time, become purely Elf or human, even if they only married other half-Elves?

So, what do you all think? Would my half-Elves become pure human or pure Elf if they only married half-Elves?

Disclaimer: I'm not an expert in genetics {or elves, for that matter }

Still, I have a few thoughts on the subject.

If you wanted to try something interesting and rather different, then you could have the elvish gene (E) and the human gene (H), so a half-elf would be EH. Then if the half-elf (EH) married another half-elf (EH), then their children would have the possibility of being half-elf (EH), elf (EE), or human (HH). Which would be very strange, but full of possibility .

Otherwise, if the half-elves kept marrying within their kind, from my limited knowledge, they would remain half-elves because the genetic balance would remain intact.

*breathes sigh of relief at official approval from Ines*

I'm almost an expert in genetics! Once you've had enough humans and elves intermingle to give you a decent supply of unrelated genetics there's a world of possibilities. First of all, yes, you probably will get individuals that look more elf or more human than others but there is so many subtle chromosomes that you really don't have to worry about them becoming strictly human or elf. Second of all, if you look at dog breeding (I hate getting into this with sentient beings) mutts happen because two different breeds intermingled, but those different breeds occurred because they were specifically mated to weed out certain genetics. The mutt will have the information for both breeds but if bred with more of one specific bred you'll slowly see less and less of those traits. Thirdly, traits can lie dormant for quite a while. Interbreeding would likely show up again somewhere down the family tree even if there was an attempt to weed out those traits.

I won't claim to know much about genetics, either. I think that, when an Elf and a Human first intermarry, the child would look like an even blend between the two races. Then, when two half-elves marry, their children could all look different: some would look almost completely elvish, some would look almost completely human.
I think you should decide which traits are dominant. Are pointed ears dominant, or recessive? And I don't really know what traits your elves have, but if you decide whether more elvish traits are dominant, or more human traits are, you can find out what a half-elf would look like.

Although, with the dominant/recessive thing, that doesn't always make one trait more prominent. Human dwarfism (I love that I have to make that distinction here ) is actually a dominant trait but if you notice, it's not a majority. In all honesty you don't have to look much into genetics on this issue, you just have to shuffle the traits and mix and match them. The only thing I see needing attention is co-dominance (i.e. pointy-ish ears rather than just round or pointed) but that's easily changed too.

Evenstar- That's an interesting idea.

Inesdar- Ooh boy.... I think I'll go simple. I wasn't terribly great at gene mapping and whatnot in school.

Riniel- That's an interesting thought, too. I could take each part of what my half-elves look like, and then pin a dominant or recessive trait to them (using your example, they have pointed ears). Would that work?

Thanks for your thoughts, all! This is really helping. And a great relief to know that I haven't screwed up an entire race (which is probably my favorite race).

This is a highly fascinating subject, specifically because I loved studying this kind of stuff.

However, everyone else has summed up my thoughts on the subject, so I'm not going to belabor the issue.

Hmm. All of the genetic possibilities are endless.

I agree with what Airi said, everything else has been mentioned.

With my humans/elves, it's almost like different sub-races of the human race. In certain places they are so mixed up there's no classifying them. (IE, Brazil and other South American Countries.) In other places they remain so separate and there is relatively no intermarriage at all taking place. (IE, Middle east and Central Asia.)

How are the half-elves doing these days?

The half-elves are doing great. I've developed them a bit more, and they're by far my favorite race I've created.

Wonderful.

I have a favourite race in my world too. Some of them you feel like you know more about them, you know what I mean?

I do. I'm sure that I've neglected other races in my world with my favoritism towards these guys. There always has to be a race that's just plain awesome, right?

Yes! I have found that also!

True story. My mind rebels against this, but yes, it seems natural to be inclined to make one people stand out above the others.

I LOVE genetics!

I do think this topic was being derailed a bit. Can we return to the main subject of genetics please? Thanks. :-)

I've thought about this a lot since I'm a quarter Mexican, a quarter Italian, and half White American.
And basically, a half elf + half elf = half elf. If that pattern continues they would still be half elves. Now how that would affect traits is a bit beyond my ability to spout a quick answer to. But simply speaking, that's the basic answer to your original question.

Punnet squares are nice and helpful with those dominant/recessive things. If you have to figure out the degree of elfishness or humanishnes in the family of characters, a Punnet square could definitely be helpful to figure out the probability of each one. That could definitely make some interesting familial conflict as as the human children would age faster than half and full elf siblings.

Punnet squares are indeed very handy for figuring out how traits would manifest. But as far heritage/lineage/ethnicity, all children of two half-elf parents would be half-elves.