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I think most white Americans identify as Irish first and then German second. However, a lot of German heritage was suppressed following anti-German sentiment du

by c3534l 10y ago

I think most white Americans identify as Irish first and then German second. However, a lot of German heritage was suppressed following anti-German sentiment during WWI and WWII. Edit: it's actually the other way around. German is the most common ancestry for white people in America.

curtis 10y ago
I've long heard that German is the most common ancestry for Americans, but I've always wondered how that was determined. I think they may be counting total immigrants, but not allowing for when the immigrants arrived. I can readily believe that more immigrants arrived from Germany than from the British Isles, but it's also possible that by the time those German immigrants showed up they were outnumbered by the descendants of the earlier immigrants from the British Isles, perhaps even just immigrants from England itself. I've never seen any sort of analysis like this, though.
- c3534l 10y ago
  They just ask people where their ancestors came from, like on the census. Brits may be undercounted because they've been here so long they don't even know they were British, but also the European population was quite small when they first started to settle here.
  - curtis 10y ago
    Oh, this is pretty interesting: From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_ethnicity_in_the_United_States#Analysis_by_2000_Federal_Population_Census https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_ethnicity_in_the_Unit...: Fifteen largest ancestries in the United States as self reported in the 2000 Census:[58] Rank Ancestry Number Percent of total population — U.K. (1801–1922) 66,224,627[59] 23.3%[59] 1 German 42,841,569 15.2% 2 Irish 30,524,799 10.8% 3 African 24,903,412 8.8% 4 English 24,509,692 8.7% 5 American 20,188,305 7.2% 6 Mexican 18,382,291 6.5% 7 Italian 15,638,348 5.6% 8 Polish 8,977,235 3.2% 9 French 8,309,666 3.0% 10 American Indian and Alaskan Native 7,876,568 2.8% 11 Scottish 4,890,581 1.7% 12 Dutch 4,541,770 1.6% 13 Norwegian 4,477,725 1.6% 14 Scotch-Irish 4,319,232 1.5% 15 Chinese 4,010,114 1.4%
    - int_19h 10y ago
      Even more interesting if you look at it state by state. You'll find that most states in the northwestern part of the country are majority German, for example.
  - laurencerowe 10y ago
    I can't find the source, but a couple of years ago I saw a fascinating presentation from a genealogy & genotyping company showing that genetically more American's had English heritage than German heritage. Combining the 'American' census category into the 'English' category pretty much removed the discrepancy...
rmason 10y ago
My mothers parents were of German heritage. Neither spoke English before entering kindergarten. My grandfather was an engineer in Detroit working on the Liberty aircraft engine that powered the WWI bombers. He rode the bus to work and it wasn't uncommon for women mostly to come up to him and physically attack him wondering why he wasn't in the armed forces. I asked my grandmother once why she didn't teach either of her children to speak German. She told me that it was on purpose, they were ashamed and didn't want to make them targets.

by c3534l 10y ago

curtis 10y ago

I've long heard that German is the most common ancestry for Americans, but I've always wondered how that was determined. I think they may be counting total immigrants, but not allowing for when the immigrants arrived. I can readily believe that more immigrants arrived from Germany than from the British Isles, but it's also possible that by the time those German immigrants showed up they were outnumbered by the descendants of the earlier immigrants from the British Isles, perhaps even just immigrants from England itself. I've never seen any sort of analysis like this, though.

c3534l 10y ago
They just ask people where their ancestors came from, like on the census. Brits may be undercounted because they've been here so long they don't even know they were British, but also the European population was quite small when they first started to settle here.
- curtis 10y ago
  Oh, this is pretty interesting: From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_ethnicity_in_the_United_States#Analysis_by_2000_Federal_Population_Census https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_ethnicity_in_the_Unit...: Fifteen largest ancestries in the United States as self reported in the 2000 Census:[58] Rank Ancestry Number Percent of total population — U.K. (1801–1922) 66,224,627[59] 23.3%[59] 1 German 42,841,569 15.2% 2 Irish 30,524,799 10.8% 3 African 24,903,412 8.8% 4 English 24,509,692 8.7% 5 American 20,188,305 7.2% 6 Mexican 18,382,291 6.5% 7 Italian 15,638,348 5.6% 8 Polish 8,977,235 3.2% 9 French 8,309,666 3.0% 10 American Indian and Alaskan Native 7,876,568 2.8% 11 Scottish 4,890,581 1.7% 12 Dutch 4,541,770 1.6% 13 Norwegian 4,477,725 1.6% 14 Scotch-Irish 4,319,232 1.5% 15 Chinese 4,010,114 1.4%
  - int_19h 10y ago
    Even more interesting if you look at it state by state. You'll find that most states in the northwestern part of the country are majority German, for example.
- laurencerowe 10y ago
  I can't find the source, but a couple of years ago I saw a fascinating presentation from a genealogy & genotyping company showing that genetically more American's had English heritage than German heritage. Combining the 'American' census category into the 'English' category pretty much removed the discrepancy...

rmason 10y ago

My mothers parents were of German heritage. Neither spoke English before entering kindergarten. My grandfather was an engineer in Detroit working on the Liberty aircraft engine that powered the WWI bombers. He rode the bus to work and it wasn't uncommon for women mostly to come up to him and physically attack him wondering why he wasn't in the armed forces. I asked my grandmother once why she didn't teach either of her children to speak German. She told me that it was on purpose, they were ashamed and didn't want to make them targets.