British Americans

British Americans are citizens of the United States of British or partial British ancestry. British Americans commonly have English, Scottish, or Welsh family heritage, although some Americans of Irish descent prefer to recognize themselves as British since Ireland was part of the United Kingdom from 1801 to 1922.

British American or American?

Many British Americans, with the possible exception of the Scottish and the Irish, have ancestry in the United States that dates back to the seventeenth century. With ancestry so "American," some British Americans have began recognizing themselves as only American. In an historical context, that terminology would be correct. For instance, today's southern Italians don't consider themselves Greeks or partially Greek because their ancestors came from Greece. Today's English population doesn't consider themselves to be German because their ancestors were Anglo-Saxons from Germany. American society tends to believe in hyphenated-Americanism, despite the fact that one's ancestry may date back to the foundations of this nation.