Maryland, VA, & the East Coast: Ancestry Maps (Baltimore, Cumberland: transplants, 2014)

[Eugene80]

The following charts show US ancestry by region and neighborhood.

The first map comes from the 2000 census and the second is from the 2010 ACS. There's almost no difference between the two, they're identical. You can zoom in on both maps by clicking anywhere.

http://i.imgur.com/vPpbiJt.png (2000)

https://coopercenterdemographics.fil...nreported1.jpg (2010)


Source: Ancestry: Who do you think you are? | StatChat

If you zoom into MD, in terms of whites, you see mostly German (and a little bit of English on the margins). What surprises me is there's no Italian and Irish shown -- none! Can this really be true? I thought the Baltimore area had lots of people of Italian ancestry as well as Irish.

On the other hand if you zoom into NJ then the white population is mostly Italian and Irish. There's no German (or English for that matter).

One other point of interest: If you've ever felt that MD and VA are quite different -- in fact you can feel the difference once you cross the river -- there's an ethnic component to that as well. MD seems to be overwhelmingly German whereas VA is English, as well as some unidentified "American." English/American would suggest Anglo heritage. So the cultural difference between MD/VA is between German (central-European) and Anglo (Western-European) ancestries.

[MrRational]

Originally Posted by Eugene80

The first map comes from the 2000 census and the second is from the 2010 ACS.
There's almost no difference between the two, they're identical.

Why would you expect ANY difference in ten years?

[MidValleyDad]

I see several changes between the two. Baltimore, Howard, Montgomery changed to predominantly African American. Caroline and Queen Anne's turned to predominantly German. That said none is surprising. Italian, Irish, etc were never a single predominant population in any county.

[lenora]

In 2000, the respondent was limited to reporting one or two ancestries. I probably skipped that question.

https://www2.census.gov/programs-sur...t-43/tab01.pdf

[westsideboy]

Originally Posted by Eugene80

The following charts show US ancestry by region and neighborhood.

The first map comes from the 2000 census and the second is from the 2010 ACS. There's almost no difference between the two, they're identical. You can zoom in on both maps by clicking anywhere.

http://i.imgur.com/vPpbiJt.png (2000)

https://coopercenterdemographics.fil...nreported1.jpg (2010)


Source: Ancestry: Who do you think you are? | StatChat

If you zoom into MD, in terms of whites, you see mostly German (and a little bit of English on the margins). What surprises me is there's no Italian and Irish shown -- none! Can this really be true? I thought the Baltimore area had lots of people of Italian ancestry as well as Irish.

On the other hand if you zoom into NJ then the white population is mostly Italian and Irish. There's no German (or English for that matter).

One other point of interest: If you've ever felt that MD and VA are quite different -- in fact you can feel the difference once you cross the river -- there's an ethnic component to that as well. MD seems to be overwhelmingly German whereas VA is English, as well as some unidentified "American." English/American would suggest Anglo heritage. So the cultural difference between MD/VA is between German (central-European) and Anglo (Western-European) ancestries.

The maps show the plurality ethnicity. It could be as low as 20%, it could be as high as 80%. This type of map does not give you that information.

There are absolutely Irish and Italians all over Maryland. There is just no one county where there are more of either of them than the more ubiquitous German that stretches from the Mid-Atlantic all the way out to the West.

The more transplants that arrive, the less useful these maps are at showing historical settlement trends. Not surprised that Maryland has had some changes in the last 10 years, I would expect them to continue.

[Eugene80]

I'd like to alert others that there's a fascinating tool on the Web that shows detailed breakdowns by ancestry:
https://statisticalatlas.com/United-States/Ancestry


(scroll to the map(s) below and explore detailed regions)

As you zoom in or select particular regions/cities, the "Ancestry" tab on the right will always give detailed sorted breakdowns by ancestry, whether it's the whole country or the smallest area of a city -- and everything in between!


I've been fascinated by this Statistical Atlas and found a tremendous amount of info from it.


For instance, the most German areas of the US aren't Pennsylvania as you may have thought, but rather North Dakota and the surrounding areas. In some counties like McIntosh Co. ND ~70% of people have German origins.


In terms of Maryland, there's a clear difference between Coastal MD and Inner MD. Coastal MD seems to have a large English demographic and is part of the VA/DC "Tidewater" cultural region. Inner MD seems to a more German population and is part of the German/Quaker "Midlands."

[Digger 68]

Germany is the largest ancestral group in the US. Of course one side of my family is mostly German.

[Bert_from_back_East]

Originally Posted by Eugene80

The following charts show US ancestry by region and neighborhood.

The first map comes from the 2000 census and the second is from the 2010 ACS. There's almost no difference between the two, they're identical. You can zoom in on both maps by clicking anywhere.

http://i.imgur.com/vPpbiJt.png (2000)

https://coopercenterdemographics.fil...nreported1.jpg (2010)


Source: Ancestry: Who do you think you are? | StatChat

If you zoom into MD, in terms of whites, you see mostly German (and a little bit of English on the margins). What surprises me is there's no Italian and Irish shown -- none! Can this really be true? I thought the Baltimore area had lots of people of Italian ancestry as well as Irish.

On the other hand if you zoom into NJ then the white population is mostly Italian and Irish. There's no German (or English for that matter).

One other point of interest: If you've ever felt that MD and VA are quite different -- in fact you can feel the difference once you cross the river -- there's an ethnic component to that as well. MD seems to be overwhelmingly German whereas VA is English, as well as some unidentified "American." English/American would suggest Anglo heritage. So the cultural difference between MD/VA is between German (central-European) and Anglo (Western-European) ancestries.

According to the Pew Research Center, only 15% of adults in Maryland are Roman Catholic by religious affiliation. Therefore, it is not surprising that English and German are more widely reported European ancestries in Maryland than Irish and Italian. Obviously, people who report English and/or German ancestry are more likely to be affiliated with a Protestant Christian denomination, whereas people who report Irish and/or Italian ancestry are more likely to be affiliated with the Roman Catholic Church. In nearby New Jersey, which has a much higher concentration of residents who reported either Irish or Italian as their primary ancestry in 2010, 34% of adults who reside in that state are Roman Catholic by religious affiliation.

Source: https://www.pewforum.org/religious-l...te/new-jersey/

As a correction, there are two peripheral counties in New Jersey wherein German is the most widely reported European ancestry: Salem and Warren. However, there are no counties in New Jersey wherein English is the most widely reported ancestry, which is likely the result of limited English settlement in the state during the colonial and early American periods. It seems as if English settlers favored the New England and Southern Colonies, including Maryland, as opposed to the Middle Colonies.

[Eugene80]

Originally Posted by Bert_from_back_East

According to the Pew Research Center, only 15% of adults in Maryland are Roman Catholic by religious affiliation. Therefore, it is not surprising that English and German are more widely reported European ancestries in Maryland than Irish and Italian. Obviously, people who report English and/or German ancestry are more likely to be affiliated with a Protestant Christian denomination, whereas people who report Irish and/or Italian ancestry are more likely to be affiliated with the Roman Catholic Church. In nearby New Jersey, which has a much higher concentration of residents who reported either Irish or Italian as their primary ancestry in 2010, 34% of adults who reside in that state are Roman Catholic by religious affiliation.

Source: https://www.pewforum.org/religious-l...te/new-jersey/

As a correction, there are two peripheral counties in New Jersey wherein German is the most widely reported European ancestry: Salem and Warren. However, there are no counties in New Jersey wherein English is the most widely reported ancestry, which is likely the result of limited English settlement in the state during the colonial and early American periods. It seems as if English settlers favored the New England and Southern Colonies, including Maryland, as opposed to the Middle Colonies.

Yes, according to this atlas the western counties of NJ are German. Warren, Huntingdon, Gloucester.

https://statisticalatlas.com/state/N.../county/german


The English skipped the Midlands per Colin Woodard's book "11 American Nations" but settled the neighboring Yankeedom and Tidewater.


https://www.npr.org/2013/11/11/24452...ns-says-author

[Bert_from_back_East]

Originally Posted by Eugene80

Yes, according to this atlas the western counties of NJ are German. Warren, Huntingdon, Gloucester.

https://statisticalatlas.com/state/N.../county/german


The English skipped the Midlands per Colin Woodard's book "11 American Nations" but settled the neighboring Yankeedom and Tidewater.


https://www.npr.org/2013/11/11/24452...ns-says-author

I do not believe the English "skipped over" the Midlands. However, the English had a less prominent presence in the Midlands relative to Tidewater and Yankeedom because, throughout much of the 17th century, the Midlands were initially colonized by non-British Europeans, most notably the Dutch, Finns and Swedes. Therefore, the settlement framework of the Midlands was initially laid by non-English ethnic groups. Even though the power and influence of these minority groups were greatly diminished following English conquest and settlement of the Midlands in the late 17th century, the initial footprints were not necessarily overlaid. For example, after the English captured New Amsterdam in 1664 and, subsequently, began culturally encroaching on the city from nearby New England and from "across the pond," many New Amsterdam settlers of Dutch extraction fanned out across northern New Jersey. Through their settlement of northern New Jersey, the Dutch settlers built communities around the Dutch Reformed Church. And surprisingly, that Dutch influence lingered for hundreds of years. There is an active poster on the New Jersey forums who once shared that, 50-60 years ago, her Dutch Protestant grandfather bemoaned the construction of a Roman Catholic church in his northern New Jersey town.

The below-referenced map illustrates settlement by ethnic group in the Thirteen Colonies around 1755. Although the source of the map is questionable, the map depicts Germans as being the dominant ethnic group throughout much of central and western Maryland. This map also illustrates the Scotch-Irish as the dominant ethnic group in far western Maryland (i.e., Cumberland County). Therefore, it is safe to say that, by the mid-18th century, Maryland was already quite ethnically diverse, although the ethnic composition of Maryland did not change much for the next 235-250 years. However, since German and Scotch-Irish settlers did not begin settling America in large numbers until the mid-18th century (approximately 100 years after the English had already initially colonized Maryland), the settlement framework of Maryland was decidedly English for almost a century before competing ethnic groups arrived in the colony.

Link: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/223139356514355705/