'One-in-million' twins look like they're different races

When asked about their differences, Marcia and Millie Biggs from Birmingham sound like your average twins.  

“Millie likes things that are girlie. She likes pink and all of that,” Marcia told National Geographic. “I don’t like the colour pink; I’m a tomboy. People are made how they are.”

Except there is one noticeable difference. Marcia, with her pale skin and ash blonde hair looks like her mother, yet Millie is dark-skinned like their father who is of Jamaican descent.  

The feisty 11-year-olds are now making history as the first bi-racial twins to feature on the cover of National Geographic. 

And they have great role models, when their parents Amanda Wanklin and Michael Biggs fell in love they “didn't give a toss” about the challenges they might face as a biracial couple. 

“What was more important was what we wanted together," Amanda said. 

While they looked similar as babies, as the fraternal twins grew, Millie's skin started to darken.

“We never worried about it; we just accepted it,” Michael says.

While strangers have commented on the girl's looks, their parents say that they've never received any open hostility. Most people are "curious" and “as time went on, people just saw the beauty in them," Amanda said. 

Experts say that twins with different skin colours are not uncommon. When a biracial couple has fraternal twins, the children's skin tone depends on a number of factors including “where the parents’ ancestors are from and complex pigment genetics.”

The girls are often mistaken for friends yet they understand perfectly what racism is. 

“Racism is where somebody judges you by your colour and not by your actual self,” Millie says. Marcia describes racism as “a negative thing, because it can hurt people’s feelings.”

As for Amanda she calls the twins her "one-in-a-million miracles", and they truly are.