First thing that comes to mind is I would have thought Irish would be the most common in at least some parts of Oklahoma and nearby states.
I would have thought Dutch more in Pennsylvania due to Amish community
I am curious how the census defined German, if they did. I suspect it includes Russian, Polish, Lithuanian, Czech, Austrian and other eastern Europeans. Ancestry.com more narrowly traces one’s ancestry.
Pretty sure it’s just self report.
I agree, Chicago has the highest Polish population outside of Warsaw, quite a few Irish there too. Wisconsin looks about right with its German, Norwegian and Finnish mix.
I thought French would be more common in New England
I think you’re right, which makes it a map of people’s beliefs about their heritage. I don’t recall if or how I answered that question.
After spending uncountable hours, days and years on genealogy, I am comfortable saying that people’s beliefs about their ancestry can often be remarkably unreliable. We’ve had our DNA tested by Ancestry, 23&me and Family Tree DNA, and am also comfortable saying that a sizeable number of people who have are far more interested in finding their own ancestry and not their own family tree of ancestors.
There was a commercial a few years back, maybe American Express, where a father and son went back to Sweden to trace their their heritage. Turns out they were Norwegian.
Most people are blends of many ancestries, with the numbers depending on how far back their first US ancestors arrived. My paternal grandparents were Polish immigrants, so half of my ancestry is clear, except that line also has DNA from Russians, Lithuanians, Ukrainians, Germans, Czechs, etc. My mother comes from a long line of Scots-Irish immigrants from early in the country’s history. Yet, there is clear indication that someone was south of the border because of a number of distant cousin matches to Mexicans and central Americans who still live there.
Couldn’t it be data from sources like ancestry.com?
Yes, and malleable. As the country became a bit less racist in the 1960s and 70s, there was a big surge in people identifying as native.
Then, there are places like Oklahoma, where damn near everyone has a family story about being partially native, many of which are apocryphal.
The map shows 2020 census as a source. also, those may have been based on this question from the census (via AI) -
Is Person 1 of Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish origin?
- Options included: No, Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, or another Hispanic origin with a write-in option.
But that would not have provided the information about most of the European ethnic info.
Added: It appears there is a lot of confusion and misinformation about America’s population ethnicity, here’s a fairly good synopsis on the issue.
Upper MI also has a lot of people with Dutch ancestry.
Why?
Visit Grand Rapids some time.
My wife and I have watched nearly every episode of Finding Your Roots. Henry Louis Gates has had numerous black entertainers on his show, many of whom grew up with stories of having native ancestors. Gates has said many times that the stories are almost always wrong. I think he had only one or two who actually did have native ancestry during the life of his show.
When OK was opened up to white settlers, many Irish immigrants went there for free plots of land. At least, that was my understanding.
I’ve never looked into my ancestry, but my family is California Okie, and surnames on both sides are or Irish origin, I think.
Agree, my family came to California from Oklahoma and 23&me says I’m 95% Irish. I even have an Oklahoma Accent although I’ve lived in CA my whole life. My relatives I grew up with had that Accent I got it from them I guess.