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Wow, this is really interesting, and I am glad the map was posted...it explains a lot of my own personal perceptions and experiences...
I was born and raised on the island of Manhattan, then was moved to Florida at 16...then lived in Georgia after that....I always met people I "fit in " with, in high school and in Georgia...
I did not feel I fit in when I lived in Ohio, and now in the Chicago area...perhaps because of my early upbringing...
Since some Southerners seem to believe that the rest of us white people "up north" are all just one ethnicity, I thought I would share my own background:
I have traced all of my ancestors out of the US, however I have not traced them all out of Canada, so Quebecois and Irish-Canadian percentages are a bit of an assumption. Plus, even my family that I have traced back to the old world may have moved from elsewhere shortly before. Nothing is certain!
*(I said Irish-Scots and not Scots-Irish because they moved from Ireland to Scotland in the famine. It is very likely they were originally Scottish and had migrated during the mass migration in the 1600s under James, however I do not know this for a fact and saying 'Scotch-Irish' would not only be an assumption but would also imply Protestanism)
P.S.-
My ancestors have been on this continent since the 1500s.
Since some Southerners seem to believe that the rest of us white people "up north" are all just one ethnicity, I thought I would share my own background:
I have traced all of my ancestors out of the US, however I have not traced them all out of Canada, so Quebecois and Irish-Canadian percentages are a bit of an assumption. Plus, even my family that I have traced back to the old world may have moved from elsewhere shortly before. Nothing is certain!
*(I said Irish-Scots and not Scots-Irish because they moved from Ireland to Scotland in the famine. It is very likely they were originally Scottish and had migrated during the mass migration in the 1600s under James, however I do not know this for a fact and saying 'Scotch-Irish' would not only be an assumption but would also imply Protestanism)
P.S.-
My ancestors have been on this continent since the 1500s.
No, no I didn't mean to say that all northerners were one ethnicity as I know betterLOL but really often there are more people whose ancestors immigrated in the 19th and early 20th century who are still one lineage and can tell you about the grandparents who lived in the "old country". Well down here Italians and Greeks and Lebanese still have those stronger ties to their heritage than say someone whose ancestors have been here for a couple hundred years.
I really don't know the degree of Scot, Irish or English in me on my southern side; however, my late father who was a native of Ohio had a full blooded German Grandma whose parents came to Ohio from Essen I think in the 1860s or 70s. It's about the most certain thing I can say I am, so I say I'm German. Anything else is dubious.
Last edited by hdwell; 07-07-2009 at 09:14 PM..
Reason: add info
..that many of these so-called "Irish" names in the South might actually be Scots-Irish, and these people would belong to Protestant churches; perhaps names like "MacTavish" or "MacFarlane" or "MacDougald"? I know that here in Boston, it's the Irish-Catholic ( and Italian) that are the most obvious, with the aforementioned names like "O'Malley", Sullivan, Murphy, etc."
According to the 2000 census, there were 20 million people who identified themselves as Americans in 2000 as opposed to 12 million in 1990, an increase of over 60 percent. So apparently, either the younger generations in the South are identifying more as Americans and not a specific ethnic group or we had a huge influx of Americans migrating to America in the Nineties.
And interstingly enough, the Southern states shown as identifying as being primarily "American" in 2000 were shown as being German and Irish in 1990. Did people in the South lose all memory of their ethnic heritage in one decade? Or did the Census Bureau change the way they reported data?
..that many of these so-called "Irish" names in the South might actually be Scots-Irish, and these people would belong to Protestant churches; perhaps names like "MacTavish" or "MacFarlane" or "MacDougald"? I know that here in Boston, it's the Irish-Catholic ( and Italian) that are the most obvious, with the aforementioned names like "O'Malley", Sullivan, Murphy, etc."
I have heard of these names beginning in Mac but seldom ever run across those down here. Maybe some names have changed through the centuries. Only ones fairly common I recall off hand include McDonald, McElroy, McCarter,McCarty,McJunkins, McNeil (ea), etc. The rest just seem to be a variation of Smith or Jones. For the most part down in the South until recent times anyway, nothing really screams ethnic. Do seem to hear Murphy and Sullivan quite a bit.
I know this is a crazy idea, but if you really want to discover the ethnicity of a city look in the local telephone book. You can find a whole lot out about a city just by doing that, including what churches they have which can tell you if an ethnic group is fairly large enough to have say a Greek Orthodox Church in the city
Last edited by hdwell; 07-08-2009 at 06:13 PM..
Reason: Add info
Writing "American" may be annoying to some of you, but it is the most ACCURATE answer for us white southerners. As others have pointed out, most white southerners are a MIX of English, Scottish, Scots-Irish and German ancestry. And probably a drop of Native American Indian too. So just putting down "English" or "Scottish" or whatever is really not complete or accurate...
Plus many of us have roots here since before the Revolutionary War; our ancestors have been here for so long that we have no connection or ties to their native homelands. In general, the whites in the South have been here far longer than the whites in the rest of the country. So we consider ourselves of "American" ethnicity.
Now, there are exceptions like parts of New England. But even most of New England has been "taken over" by the Irish and Italians since the early 1900's.
There are probably few true WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant) New Englanders anymore. Those WASPs were the first permanent English settlers there.
Just a side note: It's interesting that the Outer Banks of North Carolina - my state - is still majority English ancestry. Those natives have been there since the 1600's and still identify with their English heritage, probably because it is so isolated from the rest of the state.
Agreed. I'm not from the south, but what you describe also applies to my background. I think saying that I am American is the most accurate description of my heritage.
According to the 2000 census, there were 20 million people who identified themselves as Americans in 2000 as opposed to 12 million in 1990, an increase of over 60 percent. So apparently, either the younger generations in the South are identifying more as Americans and not a specific ethnic group or we had a huge influx of Americans migrating to America in the Nineties.
And interstingly enough, the Southern states shown as identifying as being primarily "American" in 2000 were shown as being German and Irish in 1990. Did people in the South lose all memory of their ethnic heritage in one decade? Or did the Census Bureau change the way they reported data?
So looks like the Census Bureau didn't report American as an ethnicity in 1980(Or didn't allow it as a choice) ...And English was the number one reported ethnicity in the South.
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I don't know, it's possible..
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