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23andme looked at the amount of "British/Irish" (they're close enough it's hard to disentangle them genetically) ancestry results for white Americans by state.
I think the map speaks for itself. Note that "Anglo" Americans are, on average, only majority British in a few southern states. But they are more than 20% in every single state.
So according to this map Arkansas and Mississippi are the states with the largest British/Irish proportion?
Interesting. Is there data for other ancestries? What would someone whose ancestry is half British/Irish get counted as?
If you follow through the links to the original paper (behind a paywall) and the supplementary material you can see the results. "French/German" doesn't come close to surpassing "British/Irish except in a few states like Wisconsin. That said, this is all based upon 23andme's models for genetic ancestry. As I said upthread, given my 100% German (as in, had German-speaking parents from Europe) grandmother shows up having detectable "British/Irish" - so I think they need to work on their calibration as of yet.
Regardless, the map shows the average proportion of DNA in white-identified residents in each state which tests in the "British/Irish" cluster. I'd take the actual percentages somewhat with a grain of salt (they may be higher or lower), but the relative presence in each state is likely largely correct, and in fact tracks fairly well with what we know from reported ancestry.
I share with about 35 people on 23 and me, all white Anericans, and maybe 3 or 4 have more French/German than British/Irish DNA. The rest are overwhelmingly British.
English ancestry isn't very highly reported nowadays so I wouldn't take the census too seriously.
People don't identify with being English. But statistically speaking since the colonial population had such a large group of people who identified as English, a significant portion of the present day population must have at least a drop of English blood.
Because the Germans came later in the 18th century, records were better and often people can trace back to an ancestor and the ship they came on. I know I have German ancestors that came in 1750. But they probably married into people on the way with some America blood that ultimately came from an English couple.
If you go enough generations your tree gets so big that you have a lot of different ethnic groups. Queen Elizabeth can trace herself back to both an American and Chinese Tang Dynasty emperor.
Ok, just needed to post because this age old arguement needs to to be put to rest. Americans have become such German wannabes and self haters its ridiculous.
Firstly, immigration:
People from the British isles have been immigrating to this country in mass numbers SINCE colonial times. Lets backtrack a little the largest wave of Germans came in the 19th century, the greatest number was 6 million. What are you smoking to think 6 million German Americans could outnumber/outbreed the population of British Americans who have been migrating for hundreds of years in such a short time? Clearly nowhere near 40 or 50 million. The real German American input should be much lower & far less than even 20 million (Even today Caucasians from the British Isles still make up the bulk of European immigrants). Some people claim most Americans in the Midwest are German. Ok, lets examine that theory for a minute, all those states have relatively small populations and even if they were all "100% German states" they would not NEARLY have the number to make up 50 million, i mean c'mon.
The problem is here, German is foreign to Americans. You have a lot of Americans who don't know their ancestries past 3 generations so they either A) Lie, don't know what they are. B) Pick the most recent ethnicity ignoring their ancestors. English has blended in and become synonymous with "American", American culture is dominantly Anglo, its not as foreign, not as desired.
Secondly, Phenotype & Genetic Data:
No matter where you go in the United States. You will not find many White Americans who look like Til Sweiger or even Arnold Swarzenegger. Germans & Scandinavians look quite foreign next to the Typical white American who looks clearly of British isles origin (Note, German/Scandinavian phenotype =/= Blonde, blue eyed most Scandinavians have a clearly baltid influenced head shape that is foreign in America). Just because you're blonde does not mean you look like other blondes. Just like just because you're blonde doesn't mean you have a Nordic skull shape. As most Scandinavians are not Nordic in phenotype. They are Crogmagnid/Baltid. I don't know where the all Germans/Scandinavians blonde stereotype comes from anyway. Far from the truth, but its a moot point really because nearly ALL German Americans came from the South and this number also included non ethnic Germans. The South is ethnically different from the North. You have Germans who are darker in pigmentation & hair color and A LOT also have Slavic input from the history with their border they had with Poland.
Do you find this to be more typical of White Americans
or these obvious British isles types that can be found in all corners of America.
One was Australian, Two were Brits (and i gurantee you if i asked Americans to distinquish the brits they would be lost. One is rather easy because he has a cricket bat, the other not so much as he has a look that is pretty uber white american) & the rest American. Yet all of them are not foreign in any of those 3 countries. These are more or less the faces of the majority of entertainers, news anchors, and politicians of the US, Canada, & Australia. Add in the fact that most presidents were predominantly of English/British isles ancestry. That is no coincidence. If all your politicians look like it, if all your entertainers look like it then you can only be mostly it!
For every typical American white actor/actress there is a British look alike counterpart.
British isles ancestry is terribly underreported in the US, there's no way around it when all the evidence shows it. I am not shocked that its this way. Americans confuse phenotypes a lot and many of them don't even know what terms like "Nordic" actualy mean. I bet if half actually visited England they would see there is no extreme difference in how the British look from typical Americans.
This is an English guy
He could easily come here, put on a fake American accent and NOONE would question whether he's American or not (Hell i recall some Americans not even knowing Christian Bale, Scott Speedman, & Kate Bekinsale was british) because his look is found everywhere in America where there is a strong white population. I see this type almost everyday.
Not even in Minnesota (the state claimed as Nordic land) do typical white americans look Scandinavian. It doesn't matter who you compare. Politicians, Actors, Singers, Pornstars the bulk of them look no different than typical Anglos in other Anglo dominated countries. Canadians (who are also mostly of british isles descent) as well as Australians ultimately don't look that much different from typical white Americans. Canadian actors can come here and pass as a typical White American (and Canada has an even smaller German input than America). Most people might think most of our actors in our Tv shows are American? NOPE, a lot of them are actualy Australian, British, & Canadian import actors like they were in Legend of the Seeker, Spartacus, Battlestar Gallactica, and many other mainstream television shows. Yet an American sees them as a typical White American when they don't use their accents. Thats more than enough evidence of who the real majority is. British people can (and have) easily come to the United States and fit in with the typical WASP population of America. Ive been to England, and honestly its like being in a less obese America.
TheApricity, Forumbiodiversity, most Americans who post their 23andme results (DNA testing) on these forums cluster with the UK more than anything. Not Germany. And most foreign people on these antropology sites who visit America come to the same conclusion. The majority of the whites look like whites from the British isles and other Anglo dominated nations such as New Zealand, Canada, Australia etc.
What America does have, is a load of Germaphiles. I don't understand for the life of me why more Americans aren't more proud of their British ancestries they invented & contributed a hell of a lot more to the modern world than Germans did in all fields, Be proud.
Third, Surnames:
Don't be silly. The assumption that EVERY single German American family could have Anglicised their names is extremely ridiculous and unfounded. As there are Italians and many other groups who still retain their original surnames. Heh, you could also turn that around and say how do you know that many of those Germans weren't actually German jews? or that many of the existing German surnames were not ethnic Germans. You could even go a bit further and say how do you know many of the people who report German ancestry could have had some non ethnic German speaking ancestor? I knew a guy who up until a few days ago thought his family was primarily German & Irish. Turns out he's mostly of English stock.
Regardless of African Americans having English names. If the so called German Americans were as high as the number claimed they were, you better be damn well you would see German surnames somewhere in the top & yet you do not.
Using the Census is pretty much useless at this point since demographers have already agreed that it was an overcount. Not to mention non ethnics & mixed people are also counted which renders its pretty inacurate. Irish are another group that should not be as high, as many of them AREN'T ethnic. The majority of Irish Americans were actualy Ulster-Scots.......see, the census doesn't project reality well at all. Keep in mind this is a census that also includes Arabs as white & also includes Hispanics as an ethnic group,
Fact is, the British component is the strongest in Whites of the Anglosphere. Most German Americans are not even close to being pure. Many Americans are mixed, but that does not negate the fact that the British component is strongest. Other white Americans will almost ALWAYS have English, Scottish, Welsh, or Irish input. Even the two Dutch presidents had British isles input & even the current Black one has British isles input. Americans just love overestimated non british isles ancestries i blame part of this on making "English" synonymous with "American".
Other explanation(s) : Northern Europeans (such as Germans, Dutchmen, Scandinavians etc.) are very numerous in the United States but their phenotypes are less common due to recessive genes. English people have strong Germanic admixture too, due to Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian invasions, but they look predominantly Celtic, due to the dominance of "Atlantic" genes. The same can be said about White Americans (who are mostly of mixed Celtic/Germanic ancestry).
There are 220 million White Americans, they are too numerous to came from a single country (e.g. England) or even from a single region of Europe (such as the British Isles). White Americans are actually mixed, they have both Celtic and Germanic ancestry. Migrants from Northern Germany and the Netherlands were almost as numerous as migrants from the British Isles.
African Americans have English names because they come mostly from the Southeast, a region predominantly populated and ruled by British Isles migrants, where Germans/Dutchmen/Scandinavians were uncommon.
Last edited by JeanBaMac; 12-31-2014 at 09:10 PM..
The British, and predominantly the English, are the dominant group in the US. Don't take the census seriously. A guy with one German grandparent identifies as a "German-American". Or someone who discovers that their ancestors came from Amsterdam in 1815 claim to be "Dutch". If you have an ancestor who came around 1800, you stastically have anywhere between 64-256 other ancestors to account for. Can we really say that German is the largest ancestry when they immigrated into a largely British country? Of course not, if America was that German we would have a heavy influence from the German language or our culture. Instead we are very close to the British and Australians in culture, and almost the same compared to English Canada (which remained part of the British Empire). For example, the average family tree of someone claiming to be "Dutch" for example tends to look something like this:
Simply put, the English came to America early on and multiplied like rabbits. That one German ancestor you claim descent from probably married a mostly English-American, and their offspring probably married a mostly English American. The only way Germans could be such a large population is if all of your ancestors since 1870 (or whatever date) married only other German immigrants. You would have to prove that a majority of the 100 direct ancestors you have since 1870 are German; few people can do this. So when you go to England or Scotland it is no coincidence that people's faces look like Americans. Go to Germany or France and people look much more different.
If you have an ancestor who came around 1800, you stastically have anywhere between 64-256 other ancestors to account for. Can we really say that German is the largest ancestry when they immigrated into a largely British country?
Except most Germans immigrated later than that, from the mid 19th to early 20th century. It's not hard to go back that far in family history. For example on my mom's side, I can rather confidently say she's three-quarters German going by her grandparents. The other quarter with no immigrant background was probably all or mostly English. I'd guess a large portion of the German population could do similar.
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