Are most Oregonians German-American? (Portland, McMinnville: home, to live, yard)

[Hawk J]

Originally Posted by Larry Caldwell

Junction City has a Scandinavian Festival, Mt. Angel has an Oktoberfest, Woodburn has a Cinco de Mayo and Siletz has a salmon bake. Those are the only ethnic festivals I can think of in Oregon. Scappoose has a Sauerkraut Festival, but that was because Steinfeld's was the big business in town. Now that Steinfeld's is gone, who knows? The same with Turkey-Rama in McMinnville. When Nor-Best went bankrupt, turkey production went away, but they still hold the party. Most of the dairy farms are run by Dutch descendents, because the Dutch Immigrant Bank would loan them the money for startup. Convenience stores seem to be mostly Sikh any more. There are a lot of Russian Old Believers around Woodburn too. Certainly there are a lot of German-Americans, but most? I don't know.

Wolf creek Inn has October Fest.

[TDNY]

Germany is the largest country of ethnic origin in the US. Ireland is the second.

According to this map, from 2000, yes, German is the most common ethnic origin in Oregon, which is not the same as saying most people in Oregon are of German heritage.


File:Census-2000-Data-Top-US-Ancestries-by-County.svg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

also :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_an..._United_States

[Smash XY]

Germany is the largest country of ethnic origin in the US. Ireland is the second.

According to this map, from 2000, yes, German is the most common ethnic origin in Oregon, which is not the same as saying most people in Oregon are of German heritage.


File:Census-2000-Data-Top-US-Ancestries-by-County.svg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

also :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_an..._United_States

The map shows only the ancestor majority and it dates from 2000.

If you put the British and Americans (mostly British) ancestors together I think it exceeds the German American.

Also, according to Wikipedia , approximately 62% of Oregon residents are wholly or partly of English, Welsh, Irish or Scottish ancestry.

Anyway, if you look at the ancestors of American in the census you'd see that majority changes every year, soon Mexican American will be the majority ancestry.

[TDNY]

The way it is measured is that it lists the most common country of ancestry. So, if, like many Americans, you have several countries your ancestors are from, you can list them all. More people name Germany as one of those countries than any other. It doesn't mean everyone is German, so to speak. I have some German ancestry, but I also have five other countries of ancestry that I know of. I wouldn't consider myself German but according to the criteria I would be included as someone with German ancestry. The data is from 2000 because that was the last census.

There are a significant amount of people that simply list their ancestry as American. This tends to be higher in places like Appalachia where the original European settlers were mostly Scots-Irish.

Oh, and btw, people of Irish ancestry aren't British. Them's fightin' words!

[Smiled]

Half Scot, half Finn. Wife is Austrian/Swedish/Czech.

Astoria is full of Finns (many in Portland too); Canby is full of Russians; Forest Grove area has many Dutch. The climate is similar to Northern Europe, which likely attracted folks from there.

[EnricoV]

A person's ethnic origin is a tricky thing. Most people don't really know what it is, and most of those statistical surveys rely on peoples' responses. And American? That's not really an ethnicity - they all came from somewhere else. I do have some German ancestry, but the most recent German ancestor is 5 generations back, and so makes up only 6% of my ancestry. That's not much, relatively. 94% is something else. Or, take the fact that my mother's surname is pure Scots But the actual Scottish immigrant was 7 generations back, and only makes up .4% of my ancestry. The descendants of that ancestor, all of whom bore the same Scottish name, married women of Dutch, Welsh, English, Irish, etc. origins, so the percentage in me is very, very small.

[OregonYeti]

I was born in India, with a dad from New Jersey, a mom from Illinois, lived in 3 parts of India, New Jersey, Oregon, and now Washington. Lady Godiva is a direct ancestor of mine (no kidding).

I am really confused about what I am And I don't mind that confusion.

[TDNY]

Originally Posted by OregonYeti

I was born in India, with a dad from New Jersey, a mom from Illinois, lived in 3 parts of India, New Jersey, Oregon, and now Washington. Lady Godiva is a direct ancestor of mine (no kidding).

I am really confused about what I am And I don't mind that confusion.

You're American!

[Smash XY]

Oh, and btw, people of Irish ancestry aren't British. Them's fightin' words!

I meant British Isles ancestors, sorry

the question of American ancestors will always be complicated anyway.

[Rob Allen]

Originally Posted by Smash XY

British Isles

You mean the Atlantic Archipelago?

Dictionary - Definition of Atlantic Archipelago