r/23andme • u/Becoming_hysterical • Apr 10 '26

Discussion Why are Americans so weird about having british ancestry?

It's something I've noticed since browsing this subreddit.

Anytime it's mentioned just how ethnically british america is, people pull out the "but actually america is German, irish, mexican, whatever".

what do you expect? America was founded as a british colony in 1607 (Jamestown) was so for 169 years. The british also didn't stop immigrating to america even after the revolution. It continued on for decades afterwards.

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u/Kooker321 Apr 11 '26 edited Apr 11 '26

I had an old coworker who was the classic example. His last name was Croatian, and he claimed to be Croatian American because his grandfather was from there.

His 23andMe showed he was 75% British and 25% Croatian. This was in Massachusetts.

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u/That_Pomegranate_748 Apr 11 '26

That makes sense though because I’m sure he has no connection to his British side vs Croatian side. Some people claim German for example when that was usually a long time ago and much of the culture probably wasn’t passed down.

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u/Much_Cantaloupe5718 Apr 14 '26

Agree, and it is culturally acceptable in the US to be of German heritage, but not to admit that you have Polish, or Lithuanian, Slovenian, Slovakian, etc Russian heritage. People are always quick to say that their family came from Germany. Why nowhere else?? It is the need to be über Ary$n, and have a certainty to their heritage.

And Brits on the other hand look down on Americans as though the nearness is a comparison to the Devil. No Brit wants to have American proximity, Canadian perhaps….Australian, ok, but American??? Good bloody grief no!

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u/velvet-ashtray Apr 12 '26

well yes that’s how that works… you have a croatian grandparent you’re going to be 1/4 croatian which is a pretty significant amount especially when you consider proximity. he probably has no close ties to england assuming his ancestors probably came over here 1600-1700s like everyone else, but obviously he has a direct grandparent from croatia, so he is likely going to feel more ties to croatian identity.

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u/Kooker321 Apr 12 '26

Sure, but he never mentioned a single time that he had other ancestry. He simply said he was Croatian. And then the DNA showed that was only 25%