The inheritance of height in a Finnish population

Although height is widely cited as the classic polygenic trait, there have been few large-scale studies of its inheritance since that of Pearson and Lee 80 years ago (Pearson and Lee 1903). Values of heritability derived in many standard genetics texts are based on those data. The data of Rissanen and Nikkila (1977) on 2869 individuals in 392 three-generation families provide an opportunity to make comparisons in a contemporary European population. We examine here height differences between regions, sexes and generations, and consider the form of the population distribution. Analysing the data within the classic polygenic framework we obtain a much higher spouse correlation in height than shown by earlier studies, a smaller heritability, and only a small effect of common-sib environment or genetic dominance deviations.