Scottish Photographer Explores The Stories Of Natural Redheads In His New "Gingers Of America" Project (20 Pics)

Christopher: 'You feel just now there isn't a lot that unites people. One thing that pulls us together, probably more than anything, is the differences. Everybody has a unique story of who they are and where their family's from."

Jaxston's mother (Stephanie Magee): "My life in Alabama connects to my upbringing in Montana because Native Americans and African Americans share similar histories; oppression, assimilation, land dispossession, and loss of language and cultural practices."

"I spent a lot of time up in Alaska. I was a wilderness guide up there, my nickname was Firebeard. I was a wilderness guide up there, and funnily enough, my nickname was Firebeard. So that's my nickname with a lot of my friends now. I started growing my beard before I went to Alaska. And then when I got to Alaska and got my Firebeard nickname, I was like, alright, well, it's part of me. Even my wife hadn't seen me without a beard. If I shaved it off, I'd be like, should I get the hell out of here?"

"I grew up in a dogmatic religious traditional family and was kind of stifled, it mattered a lot how you appeared. My dad was a pastor, so I had to always be hugging the old people and looking happy every day.

I taught violin in Detroit, I taught in Chicago, I taught in Philadelphia and lived there for a while. New York is the only place I've lived where people don't care how you look. They care what you say."

"I love my curls now, but when I was little I used to hate them. I think it's like Spanish princesses."

"My hair changes. Sometimes it's reddish, other times it's brownish. When it's sunny it's more orange. It comes from Great-great-grandma."

 "I have my own winery, but I'm also the general manager of a winery in Dundee. Both mine and my boss's are natural wineries.

We don't have vineyards, we just source from organic and biodynamic vineyard sites. Oregon is just the perfect climate to grow wine in, and this is where some of the most spectacular wine of the world is now being made.

My dad's from Turkey. And he's convinced he's 100 percent Turkish. My mum is from Scotland. The Borthwicks all moved to Iowa and became farmers there. Corn farmers."

Lottie's father (Jared Wahkinney): "Lottie is holding a jingle dress. At powwows there are different categories of dancing. A jingle dress is for a healing dance. I was born and raised here, in our Comanche ways. My mom, she's from Scotland. So that's why my Lottie has a good mix of everything going on."

"My hair was the same colour. Literally everyone says he's the spitting image of me when I was little."

Dad (Michael): "The story goes that my great-grandfather had red hair. The only picture of him is black and white, so I can’t confirm or deny that. And my dad only knew him when he was in his fifties, when his hair was grey.

His family was German, originally from Alsace, but they actually only lived in Germany after the war. My great-grandfather lived in Hungary for most of his life and my grandmother grew up speaking German and Hungarian. After the war, they moved to Eberbach, which is in Germany, then they emigrated over here.
I had blond hair growing up until it went brown. And then my wife also had blond hair. Her side of the family is from Indiana, but their last name is Thesing, which is also German.

It’s been really interesting having a child with red hair. We live in a very African-American area and women always stop him. They say his hair is so beautiful and will actually touch it. That is the most astounding thing to us.

But the strangest thing for us too is that he has really bright blue eyes. Amy’s dad has the same colour eyes, and that is super rare."

"I'm from Tennessee. The dog's name is Boudreaux. We're originally from Louisiana, so I chose a Louisiana name. People say they like my hair."

"They say we have a higher pain tolerance. I've had some pretty excruciating sports injuries, and I think I tolerated them better than if they had happened to someone else without red hair. It is also neat to have something that only a small percentage of the population shares."

"Kids growing up said I had orange hair and that was weird, but, yeah, me and my brother and sister all have red hair. My mom is Italian and had black hair, and my dad had light auburn. I think mine is a kind of strawberry blonde. When I was a kid I was the only one in the class like that. There was one teacher who always called me Rusty. She said my parents left me out in the rain, so my hair turned rusty. A couple of kids called me Rusty too, because of that. Here in New York, I get compliments, but it’s a little easier to blend in here.

I grew up in Indiana. The guy who invented the heart stent lived there and wanted to have a drum corps as a hobby. So he funded a drum corps, and brought my dad and a bunch of other people out to Indiana. Where I grew up, it was fairly diverse, it was a college town, so it wasn’t so rural, but there was definitely a strong sense of community. I feel like people there talk to each other a lot.

Now I live in Brooklyn. Seeking the dream of acting.

I grew up playing violin, but it wasn’t up to me. I didn’t like how it was competitive: it’s just so cutthroat, and that took all the joy out of it. I do it for fun now: I’m in a bunch of community orchestras, and I run a chamber music salon, and then I’m a social worker by day. I work at schools and support with the mental-health curriculum."

“I used to not see myself as a true member of the tribe just because of the way I looked—really light skin, red hair. But our chief’s wife told me it’s not what you look like but your involvement in your community and your tribe, the people around you and what you put back into it. Which I really took to heart. They are great people.

I am sure some people do have expectations of what I should look like and I had those myself. Initially because I didn’t want to be like a ‘pretendian.’ I realised it’s not really about that at all, not a matter of your blood quota: you are still a citizen and a member and part of a community.

My mom’s side is Muscogee and we grew up in Creek county. My mom’s side has always been involved with the tribe, tribal lands and traditions. I’ve grown up around it. On Mom’s side some of them were German, so that could be it [ginger]. Then just English and some Swedish on Dad’s side. My uncle is the highest ranking indigenous person in the navy, Admiral Calvin M. Foster, Vice Commander, US SIXTH Fleet.”

Pendleton blanket pictured was a gift to the family from David W. Hill, Principal Chief of Muscogee (Creek) Nation tribal government.

"New York is a city of immigrants. My hair shows that I came from somewhere else. I've carried on this wonderful legacy of my ancestors.

So much of the spirit of America is represented in New York. There's a nature of working hard, of trying to survive and to make things better for the next generation. I think that's changing, we're in a scary time right now in America."

“My mom’s family is from Ohio, so we have two other redheads that are there, maybe three. But I’m the only one in my immediate family. It came from my great-grandmothers on both sides. My great-grandmother on my mother’s side is from West Virginia, and my great-grandmother on my father’s side is from Annapolis [Maryland]. I was raised in P.G. [Prince George’s] County, Maryland, so just outside of the city and would guess my family has been in the south since before the civil war.

For the longest time Prince George’s County was the richest Black county in the United States. A lot of people who’ve never been to PG County are like, whoa, all these Black people! It’s shocking to them. Especially for people who are used to being the majority, it can be intimidating. You’ve got athletes, doctors, lawyers, and politicians. I grew up around people who were on TV and on CNN.

I think it’s a special place. It’s a tough place: most of the people you’ll meet are first-generation wealthy. Super hardworking, but also super down to earth. They didn’t come from money, but they had to really push through and make their way.

I don’t think there is even a thread holding us in the United States together right now to be honest. I definitely feel we’re fragmented but there are so many areas where we could come together. I have friends that are, and I have family members on both sides of the fence. I think the first step is to understand that everyone doesn’t need to think like you, and to be okay with that. We could completely disagree: that doesn’t mean you’re a bad person.

I think everybody in America loves their family for the most part. Most of the people I know think family is very important to them. Friendships are important too, and I feel like food brings people together: food, art, and creativity. I think people have to stop looking for opportunities to be so divisive. They often have personal issues that they need to resolve, so they come out and create division because they need an outlet. I think that’s really where the division stems from.”

“When I go to other countries I would just say I’m American. I’m from the United States. We call ourselves states, but it’s really like little countries. That’s not enough for people. They want to know your family history. So then I say Mexican American. ‘Oh, you’re from Mexico,’ they say. Actually, I’ve never even been to Mexico. I don’t have any family in Mexico. My family’s been here for several generations. That’s what makes me Mexican American.”

"I'm used to the sun. We maybe get only fifty or sixty days of rain a year where I'm from, in Sacramento. Sacramento County has about half the amount of people living in it that the entirety of Oregon does. Everything's huge there. Oregon is so small.

There's still this idea that we have everything in America. We have this grandiosity 'Look at us!' and I feel like that carries across a lot of the States, that we are the greatest country in the world. I feel like a lot of people have that mindset. I'm not sure if I quite agree the whole way, but I think it's still a uniting thing. There's always going to be things that fight against you and push against that idea, but I do think that America is one of the countries in the world where you have a lot of opportunity and agency to do what you want with your life."

Margaret Henry was surprised when her daughter was born, because Randa's biological father is native Alaskan. "He has black hair. The Koyukon Athabaskan people are very far north in Alaska, like Fairbanks. He has two other children who also have red hair: all three half-siblings have it. That's a very strong recessive gene!"