Why are some Polish people dark complected, and others very light

What does it mean for a while?.... 1 hundred....2 hundred years. I think in each country there is some kind of mode- people with certain feature.....north Europe....south Europe....South America....

Anthropologist, historian have studied these subjects for years so I wouldn't treat this subject in such a superficial matter.

ye but it just sounds really really dull for Americans to be going' oh i have dark blonde hair and i tan easily, am i really Polish', tbh. Beyond dull. I use the term 'dull' in the sense of 'stupid'.

My parents are both Polish.
My sister has very natural blond hair and blue eyes and light skinned, my brother has brown hair and green eyes and light skinned, and I have black hair and brown eyes with very dark skin.

Us siblings always wrote it off as milkman, mailman and her husband. :-)

:-)

I remember from school times ( ages ago) that about 80% children had blue or green eyes....I was odd one with brown ones. So as per saying 'exception confirms the rule'.....I would say I has been like this in Poland for a while.

Again, there are Kaszubian and Asiatic influences on Poland, in addition to Baltic, Germanic, and of course, Slavic:-)

Interesting... just opened the article... never heard of the Mari before

There are Poles who have darker skin, dark eyes and dark hair and are 100% Poles, so what? There are dark Swedes, Germans, Dutch, Russians, Romanians, Hungarians etc. Here it also depends on what you count as dark skin/eyes/hair. I consider dark skin the ones from type 3-5, dark eyes-brown and "black"(very dark brown); hazel and amber eyes are light for me and dark hair- black or dark brown hair. A lot of Poles have any of those. It's true that they some have an unknown Jewish/Tatar/Gypsy ancestry. I've seen some in the comments who blamed the Swedes, Finno-Ugric nations, Russians, Ukrainians, Romanians or Turks for the dark features of Poles which is a very pathetic thing. Turks couldn't mix with Turks and all the others are known for their lightness. I've noticed that many people from this forum want to show that Poles are Aryans, forgetting that hair differences are inexistent between countries and just the regions of each have them.

As noted before, Poles often do have a strong Germanic influence in their gene pool.

Many Germans have strong Slavic influence in their gene pool - ever heard of Vends Lyzko - some areas in Germany west of Oder still had Slavic speaking minorities after the second world war (Upper and Lower Sorbian - Lower Sorbian is by now only understood by a couple thousands of elderly citizens in the area of Cottbus but Upper Sorbian is in a better shape)

Show me one.

@gumishu,

Wends and Sorbs are actually almost "aboriginal" inhabitants of much of Eastern Germany, witness the plethora of Slavic-sounding place names, "Berlin", "Neu Ruppin", "Schloss Stechlin", "Glienicke Bruecke" etc.....

I have dirty blonde hair hazel eyes and a light olive skin. My grandmother was from Poland. She had olive skin and light brown hair. People used to be so envious of my ability to tan from the sun. I rarely burned when I was younger. I would get the most beautiful colored tan in the summer time. So much so. People used to walk up to me and ask me what kind of suntan oil I used. You cannot duplicate the Polish tan. Several families in my area of New England , have that color of skin. It isn't dark like an Italian. It is lighter. When we can. We look really dark. There's almost a red undertone to the skin. Like someone said earlier. A lot of people who are Polish. They come from Slavic and Hungarian dissent. I know my grandmother was born in Austria. Yet, she was 100% Polish. My grandfather had darker skin as well. Everyone stereotypes Polish as having a pale skin. That is not true. My grandmother would have sailed to the states back in 1900-1910 perhaps. My daughter also inherited my skin tone.

My husband's mother is full Italian. She has lighter skin than I do. There are also a lot of Italians who have light skin. There are some Italians who have very dark skin. Did you know there were a lot of Spaniards in Italy at one time. That is why some Italians are darker than others.

Austrian, gypsies even had mixed with Polish Wayback when.

I honestly think the person who asked the question. I don't think they ask that accurately. I think they meant darker skin than other polls. Like I said previously. I can very easily. I know many Polish people in my area who can very easily. We all have that same Slavic feature if you look it up online. Then there were Chan the smaller face same type of eyebrow wine. I have hazel eyes dirty blonde hair and Tan so easily.. My grandmother was from Poland. My mother had the olive skin my grandmother had the olive skin and my grandfather had the olive skin. We are not real dark. We just don't have a pale skin tone. Some people think you can't be blonde and have darker skin. I have been question several times. In the summer I could pass for Puerto Rican.. I have a friend who says I get 10 just from walking to the mailbox. LOL Several of the Polish people that came over on the bow and reside in western Massachusetts. A lot of them have the darker skin tone. I do know that my grandmother lived on the border of Germany. I do also know she was born in Austria. So, was there Austrian in her? I have no idea. I do you know the darker skin tone has been passed down to my generation my mothers generation and now my daughter. We do not look like Italians. We do not look Puerto Rican. We are somewhere in between. We have a light olive tone. rather than a darker olive tone. like Italians have. If anything else. I would say, I look like I have a light suntan in the winter time. That is my true skin tone. I do have to say many people are very envious of my skin color. I definitely have a Polish nose and the way my eyes are so that are Polish. I have a pug nose. I have more of a rounder face and a narrow chin like a lot of Slavic's. So, maybe I am Slavic Like a lot of Polish people are.

If you are really that olive skinned you must have more than just Polish in you.
I have several members of my family that tan easily and I myself do,though I have to be very careful as I burn easily too.

But come winter,we are all pale skinned.

Might be that old cossack or mongol blood... my father is pretty dark skinned for a pole too kind of olive like the way blondie describes. Most poles are a pale creamy white, the most beautiful skin of all

I like Turks.

kind of like a gypsy then?

Normally, I can as a rule distinguish random Poles from Russians or certain other Slavs on the street by their facial bone structure, not necessarily by their hair, eye color or even skin tone.

Often I'm right, though one doesn't usually go about staring at total strangers, does one:-)

If not then maybe a tramp or a thief? (with apologies to Cher....)

I found out from a DNA test what I believe was bequeathed to me from my maternal grandfather Al Braska(changed from Brzoska), who had two parents who both emigrated from Poland. I have 17% Slavic DNA from known Polish ancestry, 14% Mediterranean DNA supposedly from unknown Romanian ancestry, 2.2% South Asian DNA from unknown Roma Gypsy ancestry. I have 3.77% western Central Asian DNA, which I think is from the Roma Gypsies too. My maternal grandfather looked like he could've been 100% full-blooded Roma Gypsy. I have 4.39% Ashkenazi Jewish DNA which I believe is definitely from my mother's babcia Johanna Eisner who didn't deny being Jewish when she was asked. I am assuming that my Roma Gypsy ancestry was bequeathed to me from my mother's dziadzio John Brzoska who emigrated from Poland. I didn't think about my maternal grandfather looking Roma until I found out about having South Asian DNA. Polish Canuck, you are 100% correct! I thank every one of you for giving me ideas of why he looked the way he did. I inherited a lot of DNA from my maternal grandfather's father, John Brzoska who emigrated from Poland.

I'm the one called Myatska who was talking about his Polish grandfather who had dark skin yet siblings that were light-skinned with blonde hair. I found out from a deep in-depth look at the raw data of my DNA that my maternal grandfather's parents bequeathed me a mixture of 17% Slavic DNA, a total of 14% Mediterranean DNA that is a mixture of Western Mediterranean DNA, and Eastern Mediterranean DNA. I inherited 4.39% Ashkenazi Jewish DNA, and I inherited 1.3% South Asian DNA. My mother inherited 1.8% South Asian DNA from her father whose parents emigrated from Poland which explains why my maternal grandfather had very dark skin, dark hair, and short height from a mixture of Mediterranean DNA and South Asian DNA. I have read a lot about how deoxyribonucleic acid is inherited.

I found out from a DNA test that my grandfather's whose parents emigrated from Poland when they immigrated to Massachusetts bequeathed me a mixture of 17% Slavic DNA, a total of 14.4% Mediterranean DNA after adding the Eastern Mediterranean(Middle East) and Western Mediterranean DNA from Southeastern European ancestry, 4.39% Ashkenazi Jewish DNA, and 1.3% South Asian DNA from the Roma who a lot of people are more familiar with their nickname Gypsies.

Yes, the Roma came to Europe from India. Amazing.

@Wulkan
False; research highest IQ's correlate to colder climate peoples historically. Why; they struggled more strenuously to survive as opposed to...

That is, white people.

This is correct. Urban societies too with more visual stimulus.

What if youre 1/2 Jamaican and 1/2 White?

.....then you sell weed.

Then you're probably very good looking.

Yes, a red-haired man with a flat black-man nose.

He'd be unlucky with the hair (gingers get a new freckle for every soul they take) although the nose seems ok.