Heredity is the passing of traits from parents to child. All living things follow the laws of heredity. It works in two ways. First of all, heredity makes each living thing resemble others of its kind. Also, it makes them one of a kind.

Scientists then discovered what was in a cell and determined heredity. Inside each cell are tiny structures called chromosomes. Each of them contain a few units called genes, which show heredity.

These scientists in the past 150 years have helped to solve the mystery of what governed heredity:

          

During the 1830's, German scientists Matthais Schleiden and Theodor Schwann showed that plants and animals are made of tiny objects called cells.

An Austrian monk named Gregor Johann Mendel learned the rules of heredity by experimenting with pea plants in the mid 1800's. His discoveries, namely the Law of Segregation and Law of Independent Assortment, has greatly influenced the future of genetics.