Ben ,'The Killer In Me'
Off-topic discussion. Wanna talk about corsets, duct tape, or physics? This is the place. Detailed discussion of any current-season TV must be whitefonted.
One of my great grandfathers was German but they Americanized their last name at some point.
I have German, Comanche, Scottish, and English ancestry and god knows what else since my one of my grandfather's never knew his father and his mother never spoke of him. From census records we found out his first name and that he was born in Kentucky but nothing past that.
Another ancestry question: At what point does someone just become "American" vs. (for example) "German-American"?
Well, it's a question of how the individual identifies, I think, so it'd be different from person to person. Certainly my grandmother, who's first-generation American, identified as Italian-American. Her daughter, my mother, identifies pretty strongly as Italian (even though her father was French-Canadian). I don't, particularly, but I might more if my Dad's side of the family wasn't all WASPy or if I'd grown up in Northampton with my Italian cousins. So it would also depend to some extent on what kind of community you live in, I suspect.
Maybe fourth of fifth generation American?
Pikers. :) t grinning at the ancestry that qualifies me for the Mayflower Society if such a group would have me and if I could resist from strangling them.
Magnets? Age liquor?!
Another ancestry question: At what point does someone just become "American" vs. (for example) "German-American"?
Well, it's a question of how the individual identifies, I think
Yeah, I think so, too. I'm sure some folks who are fifth or sixth generation American-born might indentify strongly as Irish or Italian or whatever. But others, not so much. Maybe people who are descended from the Mayflower crew identify as "American" instead of British. It's going to depend on the person.
One of my co-workers copped (why do they force us to share in staff meetings?) to having met his wife of seven years in an Internet chat room (oh, that's why we share, so I can be sure I'm not always an outlier).
Yeah, me too. I thought there must be a much bigger core of Anglo/Wasp, or even Irish.
Well, I think if you summed up all the British Isles groups, they'd be a larger percentage than the Germans. Also, since the British immigrants were generally early, I'm guessing their descendants are more likely to claim themselves as just American than people who can still remember their grandmother who came through Ellis Island. I'm at least 50% British blend myself, and unless allowed to check multiple boxes, I'd probably just call myself American--what other word is there for Scots Irish-Swedish-English-Creek-Scottish-French-Swiss plus maybe a few more European and Native American groups?
what's that supposed to mean?
Maybe it's people who don't know, or can't narrow it down? I mean, I think my heritage is Anglo-Irish-Scottish-German-Swiss-French, but all of those are so long ago that that's only a small portion of my ancestors that I know the heritage on. There's a lot of the family tree where it says, "Born in Nebraska, moved to Illinois in X," and that's as far back as the information goes.
ETA: Er, or what Susan said.
Scots Irish-Swedish-English-Creek-Scottish-French-Swiss
Anglo-Irish-Scottish-German-Swiss-French
This is an excellent bit of x-post.
It's an open ended list-as-many-as-you-like question, not checkboxes. At least in 2000. I know I listed every ancestral ethnicity I was aware of at the time.