I would never have guessed Italian families had NY and NJ covered.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: deepocean,

 
BS on the red states. The most common ancestry there is Southern American.
 

My ancestors came from Prussia.

Well crap.

Africa = Continent. What continent is Mexico? Germany? Didn't know Italy was that big. How is United States an ancestry? Did they start manufacturing DNA people less than 200 years ago? And I'm supposed to trust them with business info? WTF!

The data came from IPUMS. Stands for Idiotic People Undermining Meaningless Shit? Now I know where all of the ENRON statisticians work. Betty Crocker couldn't cook data that much.

So If I can trace my ancestry in Georgia through 1735, would that make me a Precolonialerianistic Post-Vestpucian?

What about Polish? And Hungarian? And Czech, etc. I think they’re missing a lot of other nationalities there.

English would win out in a high number of states. That chart is ridiculous.

The chart is entitled "Most common." That does not mean majority. Follow the link to the Economist article posted by 2BobTanner. It only talks about German, but is very similar to the map posted.

Still, the amount of German surprised me, and I'm 100%.

When I was younger, I remember hearing a story (Paul Harvey's Rest of the Story?) about how the early settlers were in disagreement over what the "national language" of the new country would be, German or English. A vote was held and by one vote - cast by a German speaker - English was chosen.

His reasoning: He felt a complete disconnection from the "old country" was necessary to make this new one work.

I can't find any Google confirmation of this, though.