this post was submitted on 10 Feb 2025
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32
Is it true that many Americans have German ancestry? And is that something that affects Americans, like do they talk about it etc.? (lemmy.world)
submitted 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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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)

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

As other have said, lots of German things in Pennsylvania. There were many waves of German migration.

My grandfather and his siblings could speak Pennsylvania Dutch, but none of that got passed down after that.

It looks like the thread from the other day is gone about are German families tougher on themselves than American ones, but I talked there about how there wasn't much sharing of anything, so with nothing passed down about our German heritage, I have no connection to it whatsoever. If you asked if I was from a German family, I'd say yes, but it doesn't mean any more to me than that.

I think it's unfortunate that I don't know much about my family, but none of them were big talkers.