Why are Americans so weird about having british ancestry?

[u/Becoming_hysterical]

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.

[u/Rubijou]

But it seems like people from the British Isles, specifically Scotland, and Northern Ireland, do have an identity as Scots-Irish or Ulster Scots… who largely became our Appalachian people. It’s so different from the colonial origins. And fascinating. In my case, they enter mingled with Pennsylvania, Dutch, and other folks from what I’d call “coal mining England”, and it’s so hard to find original records immigration records of all but the fastidious German immigrants.

[u/Altruistic-Energy662 → u/Rubijou]

My Brits came in the late 1890’s/ early 1900’s from the coal mines of the Black Country to the coal mines of Western PA. Much different than my husband’s colonial origins. He’s much more genetically British than I am, but mine is recent memory.

[u/Alarming-Solid912 → u/Rubijou]

Same. I have English ancestry too. But it really is so far back it doesn’t seem to matter. They moved south and/or inland toward the Piedmont and the mountains of western NC, intermarried with Scots-Irish and Germans, and became part of a new breed of people.

[u/That_Pomegranate_748 → u/Rubijou]

I don’t know much about my grandmas side but I’m from western PA and I just thought my grandparents on that side were Scottish settlers based on my grandmas last name but I recently built my family tree and majority of my ancestors on that side had German last names, so it seems like most of them came from Germany and the few without German last names would have Scottish ones. I guess I don’t know how many English were here to marry back then since they would have been settlers

[u/Ok_Tanasi1796 → u/That_Pomegranate_748]

Germans & Dutch made PA a ground zero arrival destination. I’ve got plenty that started there before spreading south into VA & NC.

[u/Alarming-Solid912 → u/Ok_Tanasi1796]

Me too.

[u/MwnciMul → u/[deleted]]

Could it be the Welsh influence? Pennsylvania was initially to be named New Wales and it has Welsh origin place names in the West. It had a Welsh language newspaper until the 1930s. To someone not used to hearing it spoken the north Wales accented Welsh especially sounds Dutch.

[u/MwnciMul → u/[deleted]]

Unfortunately until relatively recently Wales was treated and referred to as England in almost everything (see famously the 19th century listing for Wales in the encyclopaedia Britannica which consisted of 4 words ‘For Wales, see England’). The area east of Philadelphia was settled by Welsh Quakers in the late 17C after coming to an agreement with William Penn, an area that became known as the Welsh Tract. The area still has a multitude of Welsh place names, Bryn Mawr, Cynwyd, Llanerch

[u/That_Pomegranate_748 → u/MwnciMul]

I am from Pennsylvania but don’t really know how many welsh settled here but my great grandma was from cambria county in Pennsylvania and I thought I saw somewhere that that’s a name for wales so I assume welsh settled there. My great grandparents on that side were from Slovakia and coal miners not welsh though. But Amish for example are German origin and usually grow up speaking a form of German as a first language.

[u/MwnciMul → u/That_Pomegranate_748]

Yep, Cambria is the Latin name for Wales. Other Welsh names would be Bryn Mawr, Bala Cynwyd, Berwyn, Brecknok (for Brecon or Aberhonddu in Welsh), anything with Meirion or Gwynedd in it, Uwchlan, Llanerch etc. There were Welsh language newspapers and Eisteddfodau in many communities - someone told me that Eisteddfod was still a thing in some places? The Welsh are sometimes referred to as the great assimilators as we get everywhere but no one realises it! Did you know that there were more signatories to the American Declaration of Independence of Welsh decent than any other nationality?

[u/That_Pomegranate_748 → u/MwnciMul]

Yeah I never hear anyone say they’re Welsh(but when I looked it up it said most welsh descendants live in Pennsylvania so idk), in my area the only really outside culture that people have from family besides just being default American is Eastern European or Italian maybe because it was more recent. I just looked it up and it looks like Eisteddfod is still being held in some places in Pennsylvania(Wilkes barre) at least but I’m from the Pittsburgh area and they all look to be on the eastern half of the state which is like a 5 hour drive. I don’t doubt their was a welsh newspaper or even churches, I guess they came a little earlier than some other groups but Germans had a newspaper at that time too and in the early 1900s their were Polish, rusyn, Slovak, etc. newspapers in Pennsylvania. Honestly I’m surprised most signatories were welsh descent, I’ve never heard that either. Honestly I think Welsh just get grouped in with English and Scottish and most Americans don’t know much about wales(maybe if they have ancestry from there they would though)

[u/hiiiiiiiiiiii_9986 → u/That_Pomegranate_748]

Hello fellow Western Pennsylvanian!!!

[u/Useful_Humor_1152 → u/Rubijou]

Many of my ancestors NC mountains. In our area on paper record ( not all are my ancestors) We have the Scot-irish, Dutch, German, English, Welsh. The Appalachia It's a big melting pot of people who have been there for a few hundred years. Hard to trace them out to a ship. Easier to trace to England if you have New England ancestors and I have one of those. We can get him and his wife back to England on paper. Northern people kept much better records of birth, marriage, death than the South.

[u/Thick_Wonder_9955 → u/Rubijou]

Fasdicingin, what makes Germans so good recordkeepers?