Rare Blood Types

[MH36]

HI Everyone

May I introduce  myself to the Forum members and tell them about the unusual event that happened in my family recently. I am now  an 83 year old widow  living in Northumberland  originally from  Wincobank whose parents were from Darnall.. 

As a keen  family historian I thought that I knew all there was to know  about my Stainrod / Molloy family  heritage,  which I have traced back to a John Stainrod  born about 1630  in Hilltop Farm,  Kimberworth. 

However last week my Grand Daughter  who lives in Carlisle recently wished to donate blood.  To  our surprise she was was informed that her blood type was the Common O+ but has the subtype RO.

This RO type is quite rare being only 2% of our 70 million  population and  it is urgently needed  for those with Sickle Cell blood problems.  Being far too old to be accepted as a donor myself  the blood donor specialist's in Newcastle on Tyne that I contacted to try and find out more  suggested that I should contact  anyone  in my wider family circle  to ask them to find out if they have the same  R O blood Type  I  wonder is it possible that there are  more unknown family members  still living in Sheffield  who share  the same Blood Type  as my Grand Daughter.

Regards  Maureen Howes nee Stainrod

 

 

 

 

 

 

[CarolW]

Ror blood type is indeed found in 2% of the  UK population - broadly speaking, Rh can de divided into Rh Pos and Rh Neg... However, it can be further split into different subtypes depending on the inheritance of the different parts of the Rh system - these parts are C, c, D, E, and e

If you're positive for the D part, you are Rh Pos, if you're negative for the D part, you are Rhg Neg. The capital "R" also indicates D Pos.

 

Rh Pos types                                                       Rh Neg type

R1 = C+, D+, e+                                                   r = c+ D - e+

R2 = c +, D+, E +                                                  r' = C +, D -, e+

Ro = c+, D +, e+                                                   r" = c+, D -, E +

RZ = C +, D +, E+                                                 ry = C+, D-, E+

 

These are inherited as a package, one from each parent, so your daughter would have inherited the Ro from one parent and the r from the other (it's impossible to distinguish Ro and RoRo from each other without typing the parents as well!!! But Ror is the more common combination)

 

The Blood Transfusion Centres type for the Rh subgroups all the time, so if any of your relatives in Sheffield donate blood, this would probably have been picked up...  It's also why people of different ethnicities are encouraged to donate, as there's a higher chance of finding matched blood for sickle cell patients.

 

There are a lot more blood groups common to sickle cell patients as well and we try to match as many as possible in the hopes of preventing the patient from developing an immune reaction against any blood group that they don't have... I work in the testing department of a transfusion lab, so you've touched on my sweet spot here !!! 😀