Ancestrial map of America

Based on self-identification of people asked to indicate what their most notable line of ancestry is on the last US census.
'American' here would be people who gave no indication of specific background (though we can assume that most of them are of some sort of European background), and is an intresting detail initself, as the areas where people mostly strongly identify with 'American' is in the South.
Notice also the Norwegians strung along the Canadian border, and the Finnish in Northern Michigan, i guess they like the weather

If other groups aren't mentioned, its because they are not 'dominant' in any county (not because they don't exist). There is an 'other' (in white), i've only found two so far, one in Southern Florida, and the other in Pennsylvania (amish? Swiss German i thought), oh, and one in Maine, and a few in the Carolinas.
Any guesses as to who/what these might be?

Edit: It says on the map, doh. My one guess was wrong it seems.


Edited by Cywr

I would have put down Italian in this survey if they asked, only one of my grandparents was one nationality and that was my Papa who I have gotten my last name from.

But besides Italian I'm also English, French, Canadian, Native American(this isn't a positive one, but we believe it comes from the Canadian part as they had a more darker skin, well that's what my grandmother said anyways), German, Dutch, Russian, and Polish.

Most of the people I know are Italian, but also half Irish. Also two of my Uncles married Irish, it's kind of strange, but I guess it's just due to large population of the two in this area.

I live in Southern Connecticut, about a hour to a hour and half away from the New York border, which show a mostly Italian backround on this map.

I don't see any Swede or Greek ancestry in even the other catagory.

Michigan never looked so 'white'.

Then we see that Mexicans have almost reconquered

They've always been there, if its the S.W. your talking about.

Where are the Swedes BTW? More Swedes migrated than all Norwegians and Finns together. Maybe they're more spread out or something.

I wondered that too, they must be more spread out.


Edited by Cywr

Originally posted by Maju This is very interesting. First because it seems clear that Caucasoid US-Americans are not from British ancestry predominantly but German, something I always suspected: they look too corpulent to be mostly creole Britons.

Agreed. And thanks for noticing

However, from my experience down there I suspect that the group that declares itself 'American' has a lot of English ancestry.

I suspect if you went through the Confederate army records you'd find a bigger proportion of English than in the northern armies. I've recently been doing some genealogical work in and around Georgia and the Carolinas, and certainly that was all predominantly English.

Which isn't to say, sadly, that the South doesn't also impress you with its obesity

Actually the only "English" states are Maine, Vermont and... Utah (Surprise! Are Mormons particularly of English roots?).

Then we see that Mexicans have almost reconquered (demographically) what they lost 157 years ago, Japanese have also Taken Hawaii via migration, the classical Black nationalist claim of New Africa (LA-MI-AL-SC) could well extend up north into North Carolina and Virginia now, and Italians are dominant in all the New York region, which could well be hermanated with Argentina on those grounds.

Getting in detail, NYC is majoritarily Domincan - Puerto Rican is surely the second group there, so we have a truly Caribbean economical capital of the World - with Italian suburbs though.

Yes, very curious: Germano-America.
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Originally posted by Paul I'm wondering why there are no Slavs on the survey, I thought there was substantial migration there around the turn of the century.

There's a Polish county in Pensylvania (others).

Originally posted by Tobodai It is a little known fact that upon the creation of the Unisted States the official language was only English by one vote over German.

I'm not sure what do you mean by official lanugage upon the creation of the United States? The US constitution and the Federal government has not set an official language, not English neither German. It is left to states to decide that. Some states has decided on English alone, others on English and Spanish.

Originally posted by cattus The map is a little misleading. Mississippi(the highest percentage of African-Americans of any state) is actually 60% "white". There isnt much of a mix in this area either. .

Yeah, for someone to read the map correctly he has to realize that the spread is by area (I see counties here) and no indication of the size of the population of each group. Just a geographical spread.

Not exactly a scientific approach, that is.

Well obviously, hence the 'American' bit
But what do you suggest? Forcefully measuring people's noses?
Self identification is as good as it gets, you can control it by forcing people to pick one of a handfull of options.

The specific ancestry thing is an optional extra, so many people would have not indicated anything.
The only compulsory 'ethnic' indicator on the US census is race (along crude Caucasiod/Negrod/Mongoloid/Native American lines), with exception for Hispanics, who can tick their race (white/Black/Asian/Whatever), and indicate that they are Hispanic.

One also has to consider the inevitability of mixed ancestry, and that some people would tick what they deem most relevant. Also consider that for a while the early US was quite Anglo-Centric, so some families of mixed English/other background would make themselves out to be just English, and more recently, some families discovering the hidden other bit, would react in the opposite direction and just state 'other'.
Also many of the people who ticked 'American' could have been pragmatic about this, and instead of picking one over the other just flat out stated that felt they were American, in essense a new identity, the only questionable bit being that it could be seen exclusive to non-whites.
Other than that i don't see the problem with allowing for an emerging American identity, after all, we don't expect English people to declare whether or not they have Danish ancestry when inquiring about their ethnicity.

It is a little known fact that upon the creation of the Unisted States the official language was only English by one vote over German.

This is actualy a popular myth, based on something about making government information available in both English and German in i think it was Pennsylvania.


Edited by Cywr

The South's identification with "American" throws the map of. Many Southerners are English and Scot-Irish. Linguisticly, there must have been at least a slight majority of Scotch-Irish since many phonotical features of American language are traced back to them, like the predominance of /r/ and its pronunciations at the end of the words such as "butter."

And a point about people of Swedish ancestry:

Even though most of them did originally immigrate to the American MidWest, many have moved away from here to the coasts. The San Francisco bay area has a substantial number of Swedish Americans, for example.

I think the "American" part is kind of sad. I believe roots are important for everyone. It gives a sense of safety to know where you're from....

But after a certain amount of time and geographical seperation from the 'homeland' as it were, it becomes irrelevant. I don't see many English people seeking saftey in their Danush roots.