I’m from Germany and after noticing that many American personalities have German backgrounds I recently looked up that apparently German is the biggest ethnic group in America and that like 12% of all Americans have German ancestry so basically more than 1 out of every 10 people.

I knew that there are some people in America with German ancestry but I never thought it’s that many. I always thought that there were other way more common ethnic groups such as UK, Irish or something Asian/African and thought Germans are a minority. I never thought that Germans are so prevalent in America though and that they’re actually the biggest ethnic group. I wonder if that is a topic in American conversation cause I assume many Americans are curious about their ancestry and many might even have had contact to family members that are directly from Germany. And I wonder if they identify as American or German or both? (For example I always hear “African-American” being used but I’m not sure that I heard “European-American” that often)

  • @RebekahWSD
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    11 day ago

    One of husband’s side of his family were Germans that came over in…1700s? 1800s? Ours came over fleeing pogroms. Italian is probably a bigger group where I am, being NJ.

    • @MothmanDelorian
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      123 hours ago

      Overall German is the most common ancestry in the USA.

      • @RebekahWSD
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        223 hours ago

        Yes yes! I’m just saying in this specific area there might be more Italian descendents than German.

        • @MothmanDelorian
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          122 hours ago

          That’s absolutely true for Northern NJ at least. I thought I was a unicorn being of neither Irish nor Italian ancestry growing up there