British Americans: Difference between revisions
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=== British American or American? === |
=== British American or American? === |
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Many British Americans have ancestry in America that dates back to [[13 colonies|colonial times]] in the [[17th century|17th]] and [[18th century|18th centuries]]. With their roots being in America for such a long period, many British Americans have begun to think of themselves ancestrally simply as "Americans". This is especially true in |
Many British Americans have ancestry in America that dates back to [[13 colonies|colonial times]] in the [[17th century|17th]] and [[18th century|18th centuries]]. With their roots being in America for such a long period, many British Americans have begun to think of themselves ancestrally simply as "Americans". This is especially true in [[Southern_United_States|the South]]. Worldwide that line of thinking is often found. For instance, today's southern [[Italy|Italians]] don't consider themselves Greeks or partially Greek because their ancestors came from [[Greece]], and today's English don't consider themselves to be Germans because their ancestors were [[Anglo-Saxon]]s from continental Europe. But in American society, [[Hyphenated American|hyphenated-Americanism]] prevails because so much of the population has relatively recent roots elsewhere. |
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Many other Americans have forgotten the origins of their distant ancestors, or prefer to identify with the ethnicity of ancestors who arrived more recently, which provide more distinctive folkways than the general American culture. People of English ancestry are especially predominant in much of coastal New England, Upstate New York, and the Tidewater areas of the South from Virginia to Georgia, as well as Utah. |
Many other Americans have forgotten the origins of their distant ancestors, or prefer to identify with the ethnicity of ancestors who arrived more recently, which provide more distinctive folkways than the general American culture. People of English ancestry are especially predominant in much of coastal New England, Upstate New York, and the Tidewater areas of the South from Virginia to Georgia, as well as Utah. |
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Revision as of 19:44, 30 July 2005
British Americans are citizens of the United States of British or partial-British ancestry. British Americans commonly have English, Scottish, Scotch-Irish (Ulster), or Welsh family heritages. Irish-Americans are not considered British descent and most do not think of themselves as of British descent (even though Ireland was united under the British crown from the 12th Century until 1922).
British American or American?
Many British Americans have ancestry in America that dates back to colonial times in the 17th and 18th centuries. With their roots being in America for such a long period, many British Americans have begun to think of themselves ancestrally simply as "Americans". This is especially true in the South. Worldwide that line of thinking is often found. For instance, today's southern Italians don't consider themselves Greeks or partially Greek because their ancestors came from Greece, and today's English don't consider themselves to be Germans because their ancestors were Anglo-Saxons from continental Europe. But in American society, hyphenated-Americanism prevails because so much of the population has relatively recent roots elsewhere.
Many other Americans have forgotten the origins of their distant ancestors, or prefer to identify with the ethnicity of ancestors who arrived more recently, which provide more distinctive folkways than the general American culture. People of English ancestry are especially predominant in much of coastal New England, Upstate New York, and the Tidewater areas of the South from Virginia to Georgia, as well as Utah.
Most Americans with a Scottish or Welsh background identify with those specific countries and not with the island of Great Britain as a whole, and so do not refer to themselves as British.
Number of British Americans
In the 2000 Census, 57.6 million Americans reported British ancestry. These include:
- 24.5 million English
- 20.6 million American (the overwhelming majority of those who answered "American" as their ancestry are of British ancestry)
- 4.9 million Scottish
- 4.3 million Scotch-Irish (Ulster)
- 1.7 million Welsh
- 1 million British (answered "British" as ancestry on the Census)
- 600,000 Canadian (the overwhelming majority of those who answered "Canadian" as their ancestry are of British ancestry)
These figures make British Americans the largest ethnic group in the U.S. when counted collectively (although the Census Bureau does not count them collectively, as each of the above is a separate ethnic group i.e. English or Scottish). The Germans and Irish are the largest self-reported ethnic groups in the nation but British ancestry is considered the most common by experts.
The population of the United Kingdom is estimated at 60.4 million, which makes the British American population almost equal to it's original country of origin. However, as the United Kingdom is an increasingly ethnically diverse nation, it may now be the case that there are more people that could be described as having a complete or partial White-British ethnic origin living in the United States than in the United Kingdom.