Twin Sisters Develop Different Skin Colors — Onlookers Cannot Fathom They’re Related

May 26, 2021

When Amanda Biggs gave birth to fraternal twin girls in 2006, her daughters looked somewhat identical. As with most fraternal twins, they shared similar facial features and were easily identifiable as sisters. However, the bi-racial couple was in for a surprise when their daughters were born with different skin tones. Marcia and Millie Biggs are now almost 15 years old in 2021, and their unique appearances often cause strangers to question if they're actually twins.

Michael and Amanda Biggs are a biracial couple from Birmingham, England. In 2006, they welcomed twin girls into the world. While the twins shared similar features, they had different skin colors, which often surprised people who saw them together. However, their parents say that at the beginning, the girls looked almost identical. 

At around the 10-month mark, however, the Biggs family noticed that Millie's skin was turning darker. Her hair started to grow thicker and darker as well. Amanda and Michael thought that Marcia would soon follow suit. Instead, Marcia's skin lightened, her hair grew blonde and even her eyes changed color.

"The change happened with Millie first. She went darker and darker,"  the girls' father, Michael Biggs, told Good Morning America.

"When they were first born," Amanda recalled to National Geographic, "I would be pushing them in the pram, and people would look at me and then look at my one daughter and then look at my other daughter. And then I’d get asked the question: 'Are they twins?'" When people would come to know they were twins, they would point out the obvious, which was that one was white while one was black. 

It might make many people wonder: how can two twins look so different? Millie and Marcia are fraternal twins. Fraternal twins are conceived when a mother releases two eggs during the same cycle. Two different sperm fertilize these eggs. Identical twins are conceived from one egg and one sperm. So, identical twins share 100% of their DNA, but fraternal twins only share 50%.

When a mixed-race couple is expecting fraternal twins, there is a 1-in-500 chance that the twins will have different skin colors. In fraternal twins, what they inherit from each parent is dependent on numerous variables including "where the parents’ ancestors are from and complex pigment genetics," says Alicia Martin, a statistical geneticist and postdoctoral fellow at the Broad Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Millie and Marcia are now 14 years old. The girls have developed their own interests and senses of style, but they are still as close as any other set of twins.

“Marcia is a bit of a tomboy. She loves her gymnastics and prefers the color blue," mom Amanda said. "But Millie is the princess – she loves pink and all things bling. She's a bit like her mother in that way."

When strangers meet Millie and Marcia, they think the girls are best friends pretending to be sisters. “When people see us, they think that we’re just best friends,” Marcia told National Geographic. “When they learn that we’re twins, they’re kind of shocked because one’s black and one’s white.” The girls know that they present as different races and also know what racism is.

“Racism is where somebody judges you by your color and not by your actual self,” Millie elaborated. Marcia goes onto describe racism as “a negative thing, because it can hurt people’s feelings.” 

When it comes to people asking questions, the Biggs family doesn't mind answering any doubts people may have. They think it's an amazing opportunity to educate the world about genetics and race. Amanda also knows that when people ask them questions, it isn't coming from a place of hostility or judgment but pure curiosity. She told National Geographic that "as time went on, people just saw the beauty in them." 

In 2018, the twins were featured on a cover of National Geographic Magazine that explored the issue of race. Marcia told Good Morning America "I’m proud of us. It’s not every day you’ll see yourself on a magazine. It looks so bold … I feel special being on the front cover." Millie added that the girls like being different, and she explained that she wants the world to judge her by who she is, not by the color of her skin. Michael loves the fact that his daughters learned not to see things in black and white at such a young age. He hopes the rest of the world can adopt a similar view.

Twins with different skin tones are incredibly rare, but it does happen. In 2018, Whitney Meyer and Tomas Dean announced the birth of their twin girls. Jarani and Kalani Dean are fraternal twins who were born with drastically different skin tones.

Much like Millie and Marcia, Jarani and Kalani look less like twins with each day that passes. The girls also have different personalities, like Millie and Marcia Biggs. “Kalani is wild and very energetic, while Jarani just likes to be cuddled!” says Meyer. “Kalani crawls everywhere and gets into everything, but Jarani won’t let you put her down!”

Jarani was born with Mongolian spots, which are blue-ish marks that appear on darker-skinned babies, while Kalan did not have them. “When Kalani came out I thought she (had albinism) because she was all white. I asked my doctors, but they said, ‘Nope!’ And I kept thinking she would get color but she didn’t,” Meyer told People Magazine. “It’s unusual.”

It is certainly rare that fraternal twins are born with different skin colors, but it may just be that we are seeing more cases now than earlier due to more mixed marriages. Speaking to People Magazine, Nancy L. Segal, psychology professor and director of the Twin Studies Center at California State University, Fullerton said, "We don’t know how often it happens because not all cases come to our attention. I imagine it’s going to happen more frequently now that we have more mixed marriages." 

She also explained what could cause twins to have such different genetics. "It could be one child inherits certain genes from both parents and the other child inherits sets of genes from the other parent. And that explains the different skin tones,” she said. “It’s just like how ordinary fraternal twins can look completely different from each other."

Genetics is certainly a complex subject matter and there is still a lot that we need to learn. However, for parents, the only thing that matters is loving their children, no matter whose genes they inherit.

Aren't genes amazing? Have any of your relatives surprised your family with a unique genetic trait? Tell us about your experiences, and be sure to tell others about this story as well!