The United States of Lots of Germans

[Elfdart]

Anybody know what the "Americans" of Appalachia and the South really are in terms of heritage ?

Redneck.

[Crown]

the Germans came early, came often, and spread everywhere.

Quoting you out of context for immature purposes.

+1 posting rules be damned this made me genuinely laugh out loud

*stands and applauds*

[Executor32]

I ran across this graph earlier which is based on the same data as the map in the OP:



As you'd expect from the map, German is the most common ancestry by a considerable margin. Still no indication of what the hell 'American' ancestry is supposed to be.

[Ziggy Stardust]

My father's side of the family is pretty typical New England stock (mostly Scotch, with bits of Irish and English. As point of fact, my genealogy-obsessed uncle has traced my family tree back as far as the foundlings of Plymouth colony). My mother's side of the family is central/eastern European - Czech, Ukrainian, Serbian. I vaguely recall hearing about a Finnish great-grandmother.

[Zeropoint]

<scratches head>

Maybe it means people from South America?

[Lord Revan]

<scratches head>

Maybe it means people from South America?

wouldn't that be latino?

Also I'm surprised that there's enough people of Finnish decent to be majority in anywhere, I guess there's more "Finns"(aka people of Finnish decent) in US then there's actual Finns here in Finland.

[Vejut]

Offhand, "American" probably indicates some combination of "we lost track" and "not that important to me/my ancestors". I know on dad's side, I'd be hard pressed to tell you any ancestral countries, so it might be something like that.

[Broomstick]

Also I'm surprised that there's enough people of Finnish decent to be majority in anywhere, I guess there's more "Finns"(aka people of Finnish decent) in US then there's actual Finns here in Finland.

Mostly in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, northern Wisconsin, and Minnesota. And only about 700,000. Aren't there around 5 million Finns in Finnland?

Offhand, "American" probably indicates some combination of "we lost track" and "not that important to me/my ancestors".

^ This gets my vote. Lots of people have imperfect knowledge of their ancestory.

[Lord Revan]

Also I'm surprised that there's enough people of Finnish decent to be majority in anywhere, I guess there's more "Finns"(aka people of Finnish decent) in US then there's actual Finns here in Finland.

Mostly in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, northern Wisconsin, and Minnesota. And only about 700,000. Aren't there around 5 million Finns in Finnland?

5-6 million last I checked, though my comment was only half serious, seeing how small a country Finland itself is Finns having a significant presence anywhere but Sweden seems a bit strange that's all.

[Spoonist]

Also I'm surprised that there's enough people of Finnish decent to be majority in anywhere, I guess there's more "Finns"(aka people of Finnish decent) in US then there's actual Finns here in Finland.

Mostly in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, northern Wisconsin, and Minnesota. And only about 700,000. Aren't there around 5 million Finns in Finnland?

5-6 million last I checked, though my comment was only half serious, seeing how small a country Finland itself is Finns having a significant presence anywhere but Sweden seems a bit strange that's all.

The real question is why there are so many in Brazil - or maybe the reverse why go anywhere else if Brazil was such an option...


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_people
Finland 4,900,000
United States 700,000
Sweden 470,000
Canada 131,040
Russia 127,600
Brazil 90,000
Australia 30,359

[Lagmonster]

Judging by the relative location of people who claim they are ancestrally "American", ie., the South, one could also vote for people who are so flag-waving-rabidly patriotic that it would offend them to be considered anything else, and so refused to report being anything else.

[Tsyroc]

Judging by the relative location of people who claim they are ancestrally "American", ie., the South, one could also vote for people who are so flag-waving-rabidly patriotic that it would offend them to be considered anything else, and so refused to report being anything else.

Like I said, "butthurt white people".

There are legitimate reasons people get tired of being looked at in regards to where their, sometimes distant, ancestors came from. Add some patriotism to that and you've got people who are ethnically "American".

[Pelranius]

Offhand, "American" probably indicates some combination of "we lost track" and "not that important to me/my ancestors". I know on dad's side, I'd be hard pressed to tell you any ancestral countries, so it might be something like that.

Not to mention that a lot of people from Europe in the 19th century and before wouldn't be Czechs, Germans, Hungarians, Poles, Russians and Ukrainians as we think of them in the modern sense (and there was a fair amount of ethnic intermarriage and assimilation even then in Europe).

[Havok]

<scratches head>

Maybe it means people from South America?

wouldn't that be latino?

I think that would be Spanish, Portuguese and whatever the "indigenous" people are collectively referred to. I don't think the graphs and charts are taking ancestors from other countries into account though and are just saying Aztec+Spanish=Mexican.

[Havok]

I think at some point you are just so diluted that you become "American". It's like people that say they are 64th Cherokee... seriously, just shut the fuck up. I mean I am half Mexican, half Italian. I'm not going to trace it back so that I can tell people that I am 78th Aztec and 967th Moor.

[Tsyroc]

I think at some point you are just so diluted that you become "American". It's like people that say they are 64th Cherokee... seriously, just shut the fuck up. I mean I am half Mexican, half Italian. I'm not going to trace it back so that I can tell people that I am 78th Aztec and 967th Moor.

I've been participating in one of those DNA studies that has tracked both sides of my DNA through different parts of Europe on back to Africa and I'm definitely not going to start saying that I'm African-American. I do mention how much Neanderthal (2%) I have in my ancestry because I find it interesting/amusing to see how people react.

I might want to move that on to 4.5% non-homo sapien and see how that goes.

[Andras]

50% German, 25% English, 25% Hungarian. Three of my grandparents were first generation immigrants in the 1920s.