Most Common U.S. Ancestries

These are self reported stats, obviously even you can understand that Puerto Rican culture and history is far different from the rest of the US. American is reported as an ancestry generally by white southerners whose families have been here for hundreds of years and have lost connection with a European ancestry, although their line usually comes from Great Britain.

0.9% Hispanic ................. yeah right!

Thank you, Donald

Considering this was from before Donald, he had nothing to do with the number.

It's not the government. It's SELF REPORTED. So, American actually makes sense. If you ask someone what their ancestry, many will say "American"- meaning either a) they don't really know, beyond a generation or two, b) they identify first and foremost as Americans, regardless of where their ancestors came from, c) they have either Native or European roots extending back very far, as I do, d) they are using "American" as code to mean "'White' European-American". I imagine the first and last reasons are actually very common in the US.

I missed that one, Dutch, Puerto Rican, Scotch-Irish, and French Canadian. I was actually going to make this quiz myself and several others related to the census... lots of interesting information there. Never got around to it apart from doing an updated and expanded version of the immigrants quiz. Good quiz!

Or they are using it to mean their parents or other ancestors were born in America.

Which falls into category a, b, or c...

You're better at ranting than you are at reading, aren't you?

A lot of Americans are of mixed ethnicity and were born and raised in American culture, so "American" makes more sense as a way to identify oneself.

but it is not ABOUT where YOU were raised and born. The whole point is where your ANCESTRY is from, from what country did you ancestor em/immigrate, (in the case your ancestry is not from native americans.)

I agree with the "Puerto Rican" and "American" part. Only reason I got "American" right is because I just thought I should type it in anyway just because and I wasn't expecting to get it right. Also "European"? Why? There are so many European ethnicities on the quiz given already so I don't see why you would put "European" as one of them. African American is also too general. Accept "British" for "English". But I guess "British" could mean "Scottish" or "Irish" or "Welsh" because they all belong to the UK so maybe never mind. I don't think you should do "Hispanic" if you are adding hispanic countries to the list anyway. For "French Canadian" I honestly think you should accept "Canadian", just I think it will be easier since only 3% get it and I'm sure we all wrote "Canadian" instead and got it wrong. I like this quiz tho and keep it up with the nice ones Quizmaster! I'm a 13 from Hawaii so idk if what I'm saying makes any sense but thanks anyway lol

Well first of these arent the quizmasters choices, he took it straight from the census.

American does not make sense, because your ancestry is either from native americans of from people that immigrated to america (or obviously a mix)

European sort of makes sense, because I think many know that their ancestors cames from europe, but are not sure from which country exactly. Though If I would make this list I am not sure I would include it. and just have a "not sure" option or something. Or keep it general. Africa-asia-europe-south america. Because I get people saying europe but it is not consistent at all to have it as an answer.

Always amusing when U.S. citizens call themselves American.

Why? Is it amusing when citizens of Germany call themselves German? Do you believe that at the dawn of homo sapiens sapiens there were already Germans? ALL of the groups in this quiz are designations that have been around fewer than 2,000 years or so. In many cases fewer than the few hundred years that the USA has existed. Identifying with any one of them is every bit as silly (or not) as identifying with the label of "American," if you think about it.

The Chinese, Indians, and Native Americans have existed as ethnic groups much longer than 2,000 years. Germans are at least 2,000 years old, and you could make a pretty reasonable argument that Italians have been around since the days of the Roman Republic.

American is never used to mean someone from the Americas. It is always used to mean someone from the United States of America.

Jenkins, you serious? You think that 2,000 years ago there were "Native Americans?" There were people back that that we would today describe as Olmec. We really don't know much about what people were living in most of North America at the time as they had no written language and left little archaeological evidence. There were thousands of different wildly disparate tribes of people all over North America by the time Europeans showed up and started documenting them. They didn't become "Native Americans"- crudely lumped together in a giant all-encompassing group that really just meant people indigenous to North America and had nothing to do with their ethnicity, until after the arrival of Europeans on the continent which made being indigenous something meaningful. Germans are an ethnic group that first arose in the Middle Ages, much less than 2000 years ago. Like many of these European ethnicities they include disparate peoples, united by labels applied by outsiders (Romans in this case).

Qin Shi Huang was the first emperor to unite China. That was little more than 2000 years ago. Today, China is *still* facing the problem of trying to convince all Chinese people that they are actually Chinese. There are tens if not hundreds of millions of people identified as Chinese who don't speak the official language of China, and 56 ethnic groups formally recognized by the government of China even though all of these people are Chinese by nationality, and their descendants in America would likely self-identify as Chinese-American. They get lumped together into the ethnicity of "Chinese" because of contemporary political realities. Chinese did not exist as a meaningful ethnicity for all time, either. and certainly not more than about 2200 years ago. Much longer than being German has meant something, but still not really that much longer than being American has meant something, in the grand scheme. That's all the time for history lessons I've got for today.

"That's all the time for history lessons I've got for today." Kalbahamut, I give history lessons for a living- five of them of a day, five days a week to honors and AP high school students. We can disagree, but unless you're a PhD with a position at a university, a little humility would be appreciated.

Don't need a PhD to know that "Native American" has not been an ethnic group for 2000 years. No offense or anything but that's simply very wrong.

I apologize if I was coming across as condescending.

gandalf, and we're laughing at you behind yours, or in plain sight as the case may be. I could list all the reasons why but there's a character limit. so, enjoy.

Dunkingandalf, calling ourselves Americans doesn't negate people from two continents. We are all either North Americans or South Americans continentally. The problem is when people are taught that there is only one continent here and it is called America. That is what negates all of our identities.

Native American hasn't been an ethnic group since the first century? I...just...I can't. Also, most South American countries consider using 'American' as 'Usonian' rude.

Kalbahamut, do you really need to have 24 comments on this quiz?

Aesthus, do you really need to have 3? You never seem to add anything relevant or sensical.

In defense of Khalbahamut in regards to the JenkinsEar many professors and educational institutions in North America have a liberal slant and scew in the way they teach their material to students.

I've been a university professor myself. I don't look at things in terms of what's liberal or conservative, but rather what can be demonstrated to be true through evidence and what cannot.

I understand that there are other countries in the large landmass called America, but what would we Americans call ourselves otherwise? "North Americans" doesn't work because that included Canada. "United States of Americans" just sounds ridiculous.

The term "Usonian" exists, although it is rarely used. I think Usamerican has bee suggested too.

Why would anyone feel the need for a change? It's not like people from Canada, Mexico, or South America call themselves American, do they? Or have they started, just in order to invent a new reason to be mad at the USA?


Just had another conversation today with the taxi driver here in Skopje. He asked where I was from. I said "the US." He said what? I said "USA." He's like huh? I said "the states. The United States." He's all "come again?" I said "I'm American. From America." Him finally: "oooooh! America!"

South Americans have been calling themselves Americans for quite a long time. It's considered rude there to use American as a term for U.S. residents, and why shouldn't it be? The Federated States of Micronesia are known as the Federated States because Micronesia means all of the Oceanic island countries, not just them.

i call myself a new englander

Aesthus: yeah, that's total baloney. Source? This is completely fabricated outrage and has only been around for a few decades at best. It's also only become a popular meme in a handful of countries, notably the ones that are most hateful toward the USA in their popular current politics, like Colombia.

I've been hanging around the Balkans lately- Greece, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Turkey, Albania.... this point has really been driven home by my experience here. It's funny how every nationalist movement must invent some sort of creation myth, tracing the roots of the nation, and by nation I mean people, to some ancient BS starting point. I visited the "Museum of the Macedonian Struggle" in both Thessaloniki and Skopje... not surprisingly they tell *very* different stories.

If you take it for granted that any "people" around today have always been around, or their ancestors always thought of themselves in the same way, or that some ancient term designating a group of people, co-opted by a modern nation-state, has always meant the same thing and referred to the same group of people, or that nationalism or race are anything other than a lie... you're ignorant of history. Full stop.
Americans are as much a people as any other, with their own creation myths.

Ikr totally agree with pensta

Think about it guys (and this is coming from a person who lives in Hawaii, a part of the US)... South America and North America. Technically Argentinians are American. So are Hondurans. So are Mexicans. We all live in America, and just because we as the US are part of North America doesn't mean we get to call ourselves American, because there are countless other countries in South and North and Central America that are technically that as well. In Spanish we're even called "USAians". Think about it. Estadounidense. The Spanish don't believe we're the only Americans and why should they? They're right. I sound stupid.

This was a great quiz but the only niggling problem I found was that it didn't include dual national identities in the description. I would recommend including this in the description as I would have guessed scotch Irish but when I found out Scot and Irish were separate answers I did not bother to include them. Great quiz though!

that only applies to a single answer though. and the "self-reported" clue could be enough to tip you off, since those that identify as "Scotch-Irish" are either too mixed up to identify as either Scottish or Irish, or ignorant of whether they are more one than the other. Like pretty much all people on Earth today, most Americans don't know much about their family history beyond maybe their great grandparents' generation, if that.

Yep, the Scots-Irish are more akin to the Northern Irish/ Ulstermen than either mainland Scots or southern Irish. They were "imported" by the English from Scotland in the 1600s to "colonize" Ireland. When absentee English landlords began raising rents and Anglican clergymen began restricting their Presbyterian faith, the Scots-Irish began to emigrate to the American colonies, particularly the southern Appalachians. There, they began making bourbon and bluegrass.

cool. Thank you for the history lesson. ;-)

Interesting quiz. I learned a lot. I was VERY surprised that Czech was not one of the options. I even put in czechoslovakian - because I thought it HAD to be there. I'm not Czech myself - but I live in Nebraska, where there are a lot of Czech immigrants. I also messed up by putting in Welch instead of Welsh - so I missed that one,.

I was also surprised not to see Czech. A lot of them made it down into Kansas too.

Yay, the Wilber Czech Fest!!!! Mmmmm kolaches.

Yep, my mom is from there! She's as Czech as you can get. But I think that the population of the Czech Republic (or Czechoslovakia), especially back when loads of people were coming to Ellis Island, is/was very small, so that's why it isn't on here. In New York where we are, you really have to look hard for other Czech people. However, they are VERY proud of their country.

Kind of amusing to see the JetPunk approximation of a flame war. Lots more educational and still pretty civilized. I remember hearing somewhere that one year the census asked people if they were "Central American" or "South American." Enough Midwesterners and Southerners misinterpreted the question that they completely skewed the data.

The less civilized ones usually get deleted by Quizmaster who likes everyone to play nice.

Took this quiz again... got almost all of them this time but still missed Puerto Rican.

and.. took it again. Got everything this time though took me a while to remember French Canadian was on here. I think that's another interesting quirk of using self-identified labels as answers... there are no doubt more non-French Canadians in the US than there are French Canadians, but I bet the ones with non-French-Canadian ancestry identify as "European" or "English" etc... or maybe even "American." To those with French Canadian ancestry the label is more important to them, so that's the answer they give.

Spanish threw me off, so I didn't guess Hispanic. This happen to anyone else?

I was wondering if some people tried Latino, which isn't on here. Hispanic literally means "of or relating to the country of Spain or Spanish language or culture"... and it includes people from Spain. Spanish usually only means people from Spain, but I've seen plenty of Latinos (people from Latin America) refer to themselves as Spanish before.

I guess hispanic is used for central and south america? Since non of those countries seem to be included (besides mexican)

Missed: Filipino, American, Hispanic, Scotch-Irish, French Canadian and European. Pure silliness to have separate categories and then a hold-all catergory at the bottom of it, I don't think any census gets any usable results this way. What anyway are Scotch-Irish? There was Scottish and Irish already, a common mix? We could have any number of categories that way...

*shakes head* --- anyway, it was a fun quiz

There are no separate categories for these... you fill in the blank. So, if enough people fill in "American," it makes the list.

Wow people look like they spend their whole life on jetpunk.com... dude, level 80? What have you been doing this whole time my guy ??? 😂

Why the hell is European on here?! The census is seriously trying to categorise such a hugely diverse continent as Europe? Wow...

No.

The census was not trying to identify who was what, what people call themselves. It was not meant to be an accurate measurement of the different heritages. Most likely, those that identified as 'European' know they came from somewhere in Europe, but not the exact location. Many Americans I know simply don't know their heritage, or it's so ridiculously confused and complicated, they just call themselves 'European,' 'African,' or 'Asian.'

*BUT what people call themselves* sorry! Hope this helped, FowlChr!

I'm suprised that only 16% of people got American, despite the quiz being on U.S Ancestry.

Well what in the world defines American? The original inhabitants of the United States were the Native American tribes. Aren't "Americans" immigrants from other countries?

if you want to be pedantic then all "americans" are immigrants since the "native" americans crossed the bering in around 10,000bc. In fact outside of some parts of Africa all humans in any place are immigrants.

Expected to see Serbs...

What defines European? More than half of these nationalities are from countries located in Europe.

Canadian doesn't work? Really surprised by that.

I missed American, too. I tried Filippino, Philippino, but not the spelling given. Was surprised by the absence of Japanese, Korean and other Asian origins. But then again, I live on the west coast, so my views are skewed.

African American?! Seriously? You need to list specific countries.

Most African-Americans have no idea where there ancestors in Africa came from, nor did the majority of them come when the nation states of today existed.

Many of the so-called African-American people have other ancestors included in their genetic makeup, even the great Muhammad Ali was part Irish. So it is very difficult to itemise their ancestors, although many fully African people (emigrated to USA from Africa) call themselves African-American but are not really so.

If they become American citizens, then they can be African-American whether you think they are or not.

Somehow managed to get French Canadian but missed Mexican...

Why don't you accept Acadian for French-Canadian? All those french people in Louisiana came from the Acadia region of Québec

The people you refer to in Louisiana are USA Americans not French people.

Acadians migrants to Louisiana can also include Cajuns and Louisiana Creoles, who mostly identify as African-American.

Missed American, European, Scotch-Irish and French Canadian.

you should accept scotish because I tried that first

I typed Norse. Didn't even think about Norwegian even though my son-in-law is Norwegian and Swedish.

This is demonstrably false.

OK, enough of this nonsense. We ALL came from pirates, who came from a midgit, who was made by the Flying Spaghetti Monster may parmesan be upon him R'Amen. We were made different by the climates we migrated to especially after the FSM accidentally put his colander over the earth and drained his pasta onto it, causing a great flood. So ethnically we are all PIRATES!

No way TWM03 I CANʻT BELIEVE SOMEONE ELSE KNOWS WHERE WE ACTUALLY CAME FROM OTHER THAN ME

Is there really such thing as "American" ancestry?

Most people who identify as such generally inhabit the Deep South regions, and generally cannot trace their ancestry back 500+ years, although it is likely that they have ancestry within the British Isles.

I'm surprised not to see Vietnamese, considering the war that happened there. I was under the impression that the U.S. let in an influx of refugees. Did they just go back to Vietnam, or what?

There are over a million people of Vietnamese descent living in the United States and the USA is a lovelier and tastier place for it... but over a million divided into 320 million is less than half a percent.

For everyone that is one their high horse calm down. It was a self reported answer in which people were given the ability to fill in a blank. I know my heritage quite well but to be quite honest I have no idea how I would answer if only given one blank. I have ancestors that came from Ireland but were mostly Welsh, from Northumberland but were Scottish, French from Alsace Lorraine when it was a part of the German Empire, Prussians from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Ashkenazi Jews from Prague. When people ask me what I am I say "just about every major European ancestry excluding Polish, Italian and Scandinavian." If I was asked to give a one word response I probably would have just filled in European.

It should accept Acadian, Quebecker, or Canadien for "French Canadian." I poked for it but couldn't find it.

I'm Neanderthalian

You should accept Canadian

Sadly for me, Finnish nor Slovak were on this

I personally know Jamaicans living in America who do.

Um... why would they? Are Haitians now Africans? Omg wait is Haiti now part of Africa... OML WAITWAITWAITWAITWAIT CONSPIRACY THEORIES AHHHHHHHH

Rly? Cuz I'm Americanese

Lmao at your description quizmaster. And after taking it I see it is not only funny but very necessary !

I took english as british and not as from england. My bad, so scottish and welsh makes sense

but the source made a mess with quite a few of the others! Perhaps leaving the swiss example out of the description? found it unneeded to start with, but in hindsight it actually steers you in the wrong direction that it is just countries we are looking for

But I applaud the braveness of putting this out here, standing here with a target painted on haha

if a person's ancestry is german,irish,english,welsh,scottish,italian,french,polish,norwegian,scotch-irish,swedish,danish,or spanish their ancestry is european