US Ancestry on Jeopardy

[Jim Elbrecht]

I was catching up on some Tivo'd Jeopardy last night and got the Final
Jeopardy question wrong despite the category being 'American
ancestry'.

The answer was ;
"Census Bureau: at 15.2% & 10.8%, they are the 2 leading national
ancestries of Americans"

I think the answer says more about how we see ourselves than 'from
whom we are descended' - but it is interesting reading, anyway.

http://www.census.gov/prod/2004pubs/c2kbr-35.pdf
[p3 of 12 has a table with the 15 largest ancestries mentioned]

Some tidbits- without giving the answer away-
The stats were based on 'long form' answers which means the sample
size was about 1 in 6 Americans.

In 2000 58% specified one ancestry, 22% gave two, and 1% said 'mixed'
or 'adopted' 19% didn't answer. [in 1990 only 10% didn't answer]

Before I started doing genealogy I would have answered that form with
'German and French' --- But I wouldn't have known that there was
more German from my Dubreuil side than the Elbrecht side- which has a
big chunk of Irish, and a bigger chunk of pre-revolution Dutch,
English, etc and even a couple drops of Indonesian. [and the Dubreuil
has a generous dollop of Irish, too- so if I could only name 2 I'd
have to do the math to see if I'm mostly German and French- or German
and Irish]

But back to the Jeopardy question---- Anyone else surprised at the
answers?

Jim

[singhals]

Jim Elbrecht wrote:

I was catching up on some Tivo'd Jeopardy last night and got the Final
Jeopardy question wrong despite the category being 'American
ancestry'.

The answer was ;
"Census Bureau: at 15.2% & 10.8%, they are the 2 leading national
ancestries of Americans"

I think the answer says more about how we see ourselves than 'from
whom we are descended' - but it is interesting reading, anyway.

http://www.census.gov/prod/2004pubs/c2kbr-35.pdf
[p3 of 12 has a table with the 15 largest ancestries mentioned]

Some tidbits- without giving the answer away-
The stats were based on 'long form' answers which means the sample
size was about 1 in 6 Americans.

In 2000 58% specified one ancestry, 22% gave two, and 1% said 'mixed'
or 'adopted' 19% didn't answer. [in 1990 only 10% didn't answer]

Before I started doing genealogy I would have answered that form with
'German and French' --- But I wouldn't have known that there was
more German from my Dubreuil side than the Elbrecht side- which has a
big chunk of Irish, and a bigger chunk of pre-revolution Dutch,
English, etc and even a couple drops of Indonesian. [and the Dubreuil
has a generous dollop of Irish, too- so if I could only name 2 I'd
have to do the math to see if I'm mostly German and French- or German
and Irish]

But back to the Jeopardy question---- Anyone else surprised at the
answers?

Jim

Missed the show, but not really surprised.

I did notice that pg 3 and pg 4 of that report separated
ethnic origins differently. (g)

Cheryl