Verification of inheritance in congenital nystagmus (CN) is only possible through the identification of more than one affected member in a family since in a single case there are no accurate clinical differentiations between "spontaneous" and inherited CN. We performed electronystagmographic examinations (ENG) to search for abnormal involuntary eye movements as a sign of heredity in seemingly unaffected members of CN families. ENG registrations were performed under three test conditions: (1) with the subject fixating a target, (2) with the room lights off and (3) with closed eyes. Fifty normally sighted individuals (group (a] underwent the test procedure to provide a baseline of normality. Five CN families (three dominant, two sex-linked recessive) were tested as group (b). The eye movement recordings were analysed in terms of nystagmus intensity (amplitude x frequency of the involuntary saccade). In every one of the five families, abnormalities in seemingly non-affected members could be demonstrated: in four families, fast-phase instabilities, in the fifth family a true (CN) (slow-phase instability). All certain gene carriers were diagnosed correctly by the ENG. These findings indicate a method for detecting slightly affected members in dominant pedigrees and female gene carriers in sex-linked mode of transmission.