Hat-tip to J-Walk for posting a link for this 2004 publication from the U.S. Census Bureau regarding the ancestry of Americans (based on the 2000 census). The map shows county-by-county the predominant location of residents' ancestors.
I would have thought my Norwegian ancestors whould have given rise to more than 1.6% of the 2000 population, but the only place they form the plurality is up on the MN-ND border and a few other scattered counties.
The yellow region of "American" ancestry in KY, TN and Appalacia doesn't represent Native Americans, but rather people whose ancestors came over I think mostly during Scottish, English, and Irish immigrant waves but who now aren't willing to accept any heritage label other than "American."
The bottom table shows the predominant ancestor heritage of residents of this country's ten largest cities.
There's much more information, especially re methodology, at the link.
I was born in Virginia, but have lived in the Minnesota since I was 9. It was my experience that we didn't identify so much with a singular country of our ancestor's origin, because it had been so many generations since any of them had been born there. One may have known that they were of predominately English, Irish, and Scot ancestry, but, that was common.
ReplyDeleteWhen we moved to Minnesota, the identification with a particular heritage was so much more pronounced. Many families had customs and traditions that were strongly tied to their ancestral cultures.
I began to research the customs that my family observed and found that the origins were a mixture of English, Irish, Scot, and African heritage.
I would be most likely to respond "American" to the question, as well, since the sheer number of ancestors going back to the late 1600's is somewhere between 500 & 1,000.
We do have a "Sons of Norway" group in the town I live in, but I believe the membership is primarily over the age of 65. I wonder how membership will be affected as each generation is more removed from a connection to the "old country"?
I am only 1/4 Norwegian but that grandmother lived 1000 miles away near Seattle. I grew up in eastern Montana near my English-born grandparents in a mostly Scandinavian community. I was imbued with the Scandi culture: Lutefisk, lefsa, St. Lucia, and more. I probably felt more Norwegian in America than my Norwegian-born grandmother did.
ReplyDeleteI am a Minnesotan and am quite surprised by the lack of Norwegian representation- only 17%? I would've thought it to be much closer to the 37% German decent. Despite some German and Finnish speckled throughout my family line, when asked, I always identify myself as Norwegian and so do quite many of the fellow MNers I've interacted with throughout the years.
ReplyDeleteAnd it's not like I live out in the farm lands, I'm a twin cities native. Hmm *shrug*