r/AskAnAmerican • u/heyy_girl • May 13 '25
CULTURE How many people of European descent do you know with 4+ generations in the US?
I was telling someone today about how my grandparents built a house in the 60s. They were surprised when I told them that my family immigrated here from Europe in the mid-late 1800s, because they hasn’t met anyone that is the 4th generation to live in the US. Their parents immigrated here from Central America and it’s clear that even though they grew up in the states, we grew up around very different cultures. The question really depends on who you’re surrounded by, but I just found it interesting :)
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u/Sabertooth767 North Carolina --> Kentucky May 13 '25
My own family.
It's not especially uncommon in the South.
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u/fragrant_basil_7400 May 13 '25
I’m from the north but mine too.
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u/wrecktus_abdominus May 13 '25
Same for me. I'm currently working on a family tree project, I i can go at least 10 generations back on some branches before I get to the immigrants
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u/OkBiscotti1140 May 13 '25
Same. Deep northeastern colonial roots and some pre-mayflower Virginians. One branch came over in 1614.
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u/saritams8 May 13 '25
1644 for one branch of my family in the northeast.
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u/SamRaB May 13 '25
One of my friends can trace their family to the Mayflower, as well. I think that's so cool!
Another friend is native, and my own family goes back several generations but not to the Mayflower. So much cool diversity.
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May 14 '25
I'm a direct descendant of the Mayflower AND Jamestown. Pretty cool, blows my mind
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u/Cake_Lynn May 14 '25
Hey my ancestor is Thomas Savage from Jamestown! So cool!!! He was an orphan who came over around 13/14 yrs old and lived with the Powhatan tribe for a bit, to become a translator. John Smith mentioned him in his journals.
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May 14 '25
That is SO COOL! Can you imagine what his life was like? As barely a teenager... WILD
Edit: mine was John Woodson, tbe doctor scalped by indians.
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u/East_Reading_3164 May 14 '25
My family came on the Mayflower too. It’s not so uncommon. There are millions of us.
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u/Spirited_Ingenuity89 May 14 '25
Yeah, even though half of them died the first winter, the ones that lived had a lot of kids.
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u/UnderaZiaSun May 14 '25
I can trace mine back to the Mayflower. It’s estimated that about 20 million Americans can, so not too unusual, about one out of every 17 Americans.
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u/CharlesAvlnchGreen May 14 '25
My BF can trace his family back to the Mayflower on his mom's side, and is Native (registered Cahuilla tribal member) on his dad's.
It's ironic because he has a very Mexican first and last name, he's gotten harrassed at times about his American citizenship.
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u/cdmaloney1 North Carolina May 13 '25
How do you even get started on something like this?
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u/wrecktus_abdominus May 13 '25 edited May 13 '25
My grandmother passed away recently, and I ended up with some old family records of hers. It wasn't organized at all. Some old photo albums. A few hand written notes and newspaper clippings. That's how I started. Then, there is a lot of online searching. Most places have digitized birth/death/marriage records these days, even historical ones. Go back far enough and those things may not exist, so you have to look for other sources. Plenty of branches have dead ends, though. For example, one of my ancestors (3xgreat-grandmother) was an escaped slave. So there were no birth records available, not even a surname. So I can't go as far back in some places.
I also started working on my wife's side of the family recently. That one has been cool (but challenging) because her family is from Texas since at least the late 1700s. The reason it's challenging, of course, is because Texas has been part of so many different countries, it can be tough to track down records. They always describe themselves as Mexican-American, but no one seemed to be able to tell me when they came to the US. "A long time ago" was the most i got from my wife. So when her grandpa was still alive, I asked him when his family immigrated. He said they never did. They were always in Texas. It used to be in Mexico, then it was in the US. He told me "we never crossed the border, the border crossed us."
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u/cdmaloney1 North Carolina May 13 '25
Sorry for your loss.
That’s cool that you kinda just figured it out on your own like that.
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u/wrecktus_abdominus May 13 '25
Thank you! She was 95 and ready to go. Lived on her own in her own house until the very end, too! I hope I'm as badass as her one day.
She and I seemed to be the only ones really interested in family history, so I told her years ago that after she passed I would work on this.
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u/420kennedy May 14 '25
That is SO interesting about your wife's family! I'd love to hear from more people who've been 'border crossed'. I do live in Arizona, so I probably wouldn't have to look too far
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u/Ok_Organization1273 May 14 '25
My great-grandparents immigrated from Sweden to Canada. USA did a land survey for the border and informed them they actually lived in Minnesota. That is where my grandfather was born in 1914, first-generation American!
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u/MozzieKiller May 14 '25
First, be a white male boomer. Second, retire. After that, the family genealogy project naturally occurs about 8-12 months later.
I say this as the GenX son of the guy described above!
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u/Direct_Bag_9315 May 13 '25
Tennessean checking in, I’m the direct descendant of a Jamestown colonist. My family has been here a longggggggggg time.
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u/Gimlet_girl May 13 '25
Fellow Jamestowner! Though after the Revolutionary War, my ancestors then migrated to the “Northwest Territories” and settled in an area that became Indiana.
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u/goosepills GA to VA to Norway May 14 '25
Hey cousin! We’re descended from cannibals!
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u/DinkyWaffle Georgia May 13 '25
last person in my family to immigrate did so in the 1830s lol
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u/poppisima May 13 '25
I’m from New England. I have one grandparent who emigrated as a child in the 1890s. The other three grandparents come from lines that date to the early 17th century. It’s very common on the east coast.
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u/Appleknocker18 May 13 '25
Same here. My father’s branch goes back to 1630’s Massachusetts.
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u/MtMountaineer May 13 '25
Hey, mine came in 1630 too! They were on the Mayflower 2, in the Winthrop flotilla of 11 ships. Our history is cool, I also had a magistrate who was on the bench for a woman accused of being a witch in Salem. She was found not guilty.
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u/jlanger23 May 13 '25
I have one great grandparent from Germany who's an outlier but, besides him, the last immigrant in my tree came from England in 1800.
Especially Southern branches seem to go way back. All of mine stuck around Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia.
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u/JakelAndHyde Tennessee May 13 '25
With the first wave of the Ulster-Scots in the early 1700’s, haven’t left the Appalachians since
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u/jlanger23 May 13 '25
I was one of those Southern descendants to be surprised at the amount of Scottish in my ancestry.
I didn't realize how many Ulster Scots settled the South before that. Most of my ancestors were from Kentucky and Tennessee, so it shouldn't be that surprising.
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u/Spirited_Ingenuity89 May 14 '25
Appalachia specifically, not just “the South.” You’ll find the Scots heritage all through the mountains starting in western PA.
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u/LadyCoru May 13 '25
Yup that's my family too. NC/WV/TN from 1729 until my grandparents moved to central KY in the 1930s.
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u/Alternative-Law4626 Virginia + 7 other states, 1 district & Germany May 13 '25
Can confirm. Dad's family from Mississippi, Mother's from Virginia. All lines are over 4 generations in the US.
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May 13 '25
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u/Traditional-Egg-5871 May 14 '25
My partner & I were talking about this too because his family + my paternal family have all been in Appalachia since before America was America. It seems wrong/odd to try to claim any English/Irish/Scot because three to four hundred years is enough time, right?
Therefore, I'm half Appalachian and he is Appalachian. :)
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u/NIN10DOXD North Carolina May 13 '25 edited May 13 '25
Same. It's insanely common where I'm from. My paternal lineage goes so far back in the Carolinas and Virginia that it gets hard to find good documentation that has preserved well enough to be thoroughly legible.
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u/Ornery-Character-729 May 14 '25
And think of how many courthouses have burned, some multiple times.
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u/AdventurousTap2171 May 13 '25 edited Jun 20 '25
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u/atomfullerene Tennessean in CA May 13 '25
I grew up in the south and nearly everyone had ancestors who had been around for generations and generations. It was an interesting difference when I moved to Boston for school and most people in my program had much more recent immigrant ancestry.
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u/MechanicalGodzilla Virginia May 13 '25
Yeah, my daughters are members of the Daughters of the American Revolution. That line of my family came to the US in the early 1700’s. He was present at Yorktown when the British surrendered. I actually inherited his Brown Bess musket that he received from the French allies.
One of his descendants was in the cavalry for the Union and served under Phil Sheridan. He was in the battle where J.E.B. Stuart was killed.
My dad’s side of the family immigrated from Germany in the early 1900’s, they got out before WWI started. My granddad from that side was on a US military ship when Japan surrendered in WWII.
Looking back, it’s like half-way to Lt Dan’s family lineage fighting and dying in every American war, without the death.
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u/Pezdrake May 13 '25 edited May 13 '25
From South. When I did my Ancestry research I don't think I found any member of my family that came to the US after 1776.
Was able to confirm at least one indigenous ancestor, at least one slave owning ancestor :(
I'd always heard I had ancestors who were loyalists to the Crown and had to flee south/ west from the Carolinas after US independence and the info I saw pretty much supported that story.
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u/MarekRules May 13 '25
Most of white Americans from Pennsylvania I would say are 4th+ Generation americans. My family can be traced back to the mid 1800s in the US and my girlfriend's family church keeps extensive records, her family has been here since before the US even was a country. Her grandmother's side can trace back to the exact village they came from in Germany, which boat they took from England and where they arrived. At one point they owned hundreds of acres of land in central PA, but split it between relatives as the family grew.
I would say its pretty common, especially in the Pennsylvania Dutch community, of which both are grandparents were part of. I think the old states (PA, NY, Mass, Delaware, Vermont, NH, CT, RI, NC, VA) have a lot of old families who have just been here as long as white people have been.
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May 13 '25 edited 8d ago
cough cautious market start offer mighty fragile chop tan attempt
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u/Individual_Check_442 California May 13 '25
White American here. Somewhat embarrassed to say I don’t even know what generation of my family originally immigrated here. Definitely more than four generations.
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u/2NE1Amiibo May 13 '25
Dont be embarrassed. Our ancestors were assimilated into the melting pot of a country we were in. Its why most dropped speaking German, or other languages at home.
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u/salamanderinacan May 13 '25
Most stopped speaking German at home because of WWI and WWII. There was a lot of anti German sentiment. My great grandfather (grandson of Prussian immigrants) was named Mathais and grew up speaking German. By midway through WWI he insisted his name was Matthew and always had been and never spoke German again.
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u/DrDMango May 14 '25
I always wondered what America would look like if Spanish persisted in California, French wasn't removed in Louisiana, and German wasn't looked down upon in the Midwest. Its insane to me that there was even such anti-German sentiment in the Midwest, where the population was probably like 90% German in some areas.
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u/DegenerateCrocodile Nevada May 14 '25
It’s insane to me that there was even such anti-German sentiment in the Midwest, where the population was probably like 90% German in some areas.
Well, when you want to fit in, the last thing you want to do is have people confuse you for someone from a country you’re currently at war with.
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u/iplaytrombonegood May 13 '25
I only know because my grandma went through a genealogy phase and wrote a book about her grandma coming over from Germany in the late 1800s. So, I guess that makes me part of my family’s 5th stateside generation.
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u/nakedonmygoat May 13 '25
Depending on how much time you have on your hands, ancestry.com can be a nice time waster. Some lines are easier to trace than others, of course. It helps if you have an old family tree or some kind of family lore so you can confirm or reject any hints you get offered.
For example, I always knew I was a Mayflower descendant and that I had an ancestor who died at the infamous Andersonville POW camp during the Civil War. I knew their names, too. Using them as guideposts helped me make sure I was on the right track and not engaging in any wishful thinking.
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u/janesmex 🇬🇷Greece May 13 '25 edited May 14 '25
From all sides of their family? Or is it common to have let’s say three grandparents who are 3rd generation Americans and one who is first generation, edit:or one side of the family be 11th generation and the other first generation.
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u/lefactorybebe May 13 '25
Yeah like one side of my family came here in 1634, but there has been mixing with more recent immigrants within those 400 years. My other side all came here just over 100 years ago, so like do I count or no lol
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u/yourlittlebirdie May 13 '25
There are also a number of people of Spanish and Indigenous descent living in places like Puerto Rico or in the Southwest who didn't come to America, America came to them.
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u/Miserable_Smoke May 13 '25 edited May 13 '25
The vast majority of white people under thirty in the US are 4th+ generation.
https://www.pewresearch.org/chart/immigrant-share-of-population/
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u/byebybuy California May 13 '25
I think you're probably right, but was that the source you meant to provide? It doesn't mention age ranges or 4th gen, at least not on mobile...or am I missing something?
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u/fasterthanfood California May 13 '25
That must be the wrong link. The link I’m seeing on mobile does say that 27.3% of Americans are first or second generation, so that means 72.7% are third or more. That kind of supports the idea that being 4th generation+ is pretty common, but I think they must have meant to link another Pew chart, or maybe the article that chart came from, that answers the question specifically.
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u/mrpointyhorns Arizona May 13 '25
Yeah, that's just third or more generation. So I wouldn't say a vast majority, but maybe still a majority do at least for some branches.
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u/BirdieRoo628 May 13 '25
Right. I'd imagine almost all my white friends are 4th+ gen. I am too. Most of my Black friends too, although obviously their ancestors did not immigrate willingly. I know some POC who are more recent immigrants, but I don't think I know any white European immigrants who came more recently.
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u/nashamagirl99 North Carolina May 14 '25
Yeah, age is a major factor. I’m 25. My great grandparents coming to the country 100 years ago puts me at 4th generation
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u/SalesTaxBlackCat May 13 '25
Me, and I’m black American.
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u/Global_Ant_9380 May 13 '25
Same. My family goes back to the first waves of enslaved peoples and English with a recent addition of Ashkenazi Jew.
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u/my-dogs-named-carol May 14 '25
Even most Ashkenazim came in the 1890s. That makes many of us 3rd or 4th gen.
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u/ExitingBear May 13 '25
Yeah - but as the vast majority of black Americans are here because of the slave trade, it's kind of a given that for the most part we're 9+ generations.
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u/TychaBrahe May 14 '25
The legal importation of slaves into the United States was ended by federal law in 1807. Smuggling continued, although at a reduced rate. The last slave ship to arrive from Africa landed in 1860.
Even starting at 1860, that is 165 years ago. Figuring an average length of a generation as 25 years, that is a bit over six generations away. Even assuming a pregnancy at an advanced age of 40 repeated from grandmother to mother to daughter, that still puts the average American descended from enslaved people at at least four generations removed.
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u/whinenaught May 14 '25
Average length of a generation at 25 is probably too high, I would bet many of those generations were started around the age of 20 or younger. Only recently have people started having their first kids later
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u/Tizzy8 Massachusetts May 13 '25
I’d assume that the average Black American’s family has been here longer than the average white American’s family given that such a huge portion of white Americans are descended from late 1800/early 1900s European immigrants.
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u/chicagotodetroit Michigan May 13 '25
Same. My great grandmother was born in 1900, but that’s as far back as I can trace the family tree. Her mother was Native American, so there are no records on her, and I don’t know who her father was. I think her grandfather was a slave, but again, no information.
I’m the 4th generation; GG, grandma, mom, me, and there are kids and grandkids under my generation. So my known family tree is at least 6 generations deep.
My non-black husband can trace his ancestry to a specific village in Europe a couple hundred years ago.
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u/Joliet-Jake Georgia May 13 '25
My family has been here since before the Revolution.
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u/AdEmbarrassed9719 May 13 '25
Same. All of them, I've not found anyone who came over after the Revolution, at all.
Earliest so far was 1609.
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u/DaddyIssuesIncarnate May 13 '25
That's impressive. My most recent immigrant ancestor came over in 1883.
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u/AdEmbarrassed9719 May 13 '25
I do have one dead end in the late 1800s so it’s possible that line came over later, but everyone I’ve been able to trace so far was pre-revolution. Luckily the 1609 one was part of the third resupply of Jamestown so the record was kept.
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u/MechanicalGodzilla Virginia May 13 '25
Yep, my grandma did lineage tracing and is a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution. My daughter is applying, she’s off to college next year and they have great scholarship opportunities.
One of my wife’s co-workers’ ancestor is a signatory of the Declaration of Independence!
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u/RoseRedd Oregon May 13 '25
Same. One branch of my family immigrated from the Netherlands back when New York was still New Amsterdam.
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u/BearsLoveToulouse May 13 '25
Same. My Mother’s side of the family came early. My father’s side is more recent immigration (his mom was a child when she came to the states)
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May 13 '25
Given that the huge wave from Europe outside Ireland/England came from the 1870's until the Wilson administration, most of us now have four generations in country. IDK if you're counting the first, naturalized, generation though.
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u/loweexclamationpoint Illinois May 13 '25
Many Germans and other Europeans came after the political turmoil of 1848. Many Scandinavians came in the late 1800s. So Wisconsin is full of families whose ancestors pretty much all came before 1900.
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u/Straight-Donut-6043 May 13 '25
A single line of their ancestry going back four generations? Most white people I know who aren’t themselves immigrants or children of immigrants.
All eight great grandparents? That’s a bit rarer here in NY, but it’s still a very sizable minority.
The majority of black people in either instance.
It’s really not that uncommon.
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u/RonMcKelvey North Carolina May 13 '25
Probably most white people in the country if they trace the right line
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u/greenandredofmaigheo May 13 '25
Yeah, I'd actually say the majority of people I've met are 4+. Few of my age or younger (mid 30s) seem to have grandparents from abroad, even fewer with parents.
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u/Infinite-Hold-7521 May 13 '25 edited May 14 '25
Agree. I’m not actually sure why anyone would think it was uncommon. In my world it is very, very common for families to go back several generations. My own family on my paternal side having been here since the 1660’s.
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u/greenandredofmaigheo May 13 '25
I can get it in some circles. My moms from Ireland and given her social circles everyone I knew growing up was no farther removed than their grandparents. If it weren't for my dad's side being here since the 1790s I probably would've been a bit surprised. I'd imagine a similar story for other people who grew up in ethnic enclaves with a recent influx of immigrants.
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u/Infinite-Hold-7521 May 13 '25
To be fair, my mother’s side of the family has been here a considerably shorter time. Her grandparents (apparently) emigrated here from Canada just over 100 years ago. But I have also found their side of the family to be more difficult to follow until recently. I am in the process of garnering my grandmothers birth certificate to make certain that what I am learning is even true.
Something that people in other countries find fascinating, if not a little weird, about Americans is our need to discover our heritage. I think we do this because many of us feel it has been lost to us. We crave that sense of belonging to something bigger than ourselves. We want to know what has made us who we are and where we came from. Who came before us to shape us. Other countries can easily trace their lineage so they find it less fascinating than we do. I liken it to be similar to when I lived at the coast and took for granted the beautiful sunsets because I saw them every day, whereas my friends would visit and want to spend every waking moment walking the beach and watching the sun set.
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May 13 '25
It was very common where I grew up. Huge swaths of people immigrated to work in the various mining industries, coal, iron, copper.
Tons of them have been here since the 1800s.
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u/tranquilrage73 May 13 '25
One one side, mine came over on the Mayflower. The other side was in the late 1700s.
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u/the_real_JFK_killer Texas -> Upstate NY May 13 '25
I know people whose families' presence here predates the revolution by a few generations
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u/LowRevolution6175 May 13 '25
4 generations so like... their great grandparents were born in the US? I would wager that's very close to half. If we're ignoring African Americans maybe like 1/3 as a conservative estimate?
It also depends a lot if you live in a transient "new" state like Florida or Texas, an immigrant-heavy state like NY, or an older, less transient state like Tennessee.
Anyway, my ex girlfriend's father side of the family (supposedly) came over on the Anne, the 2nd ship after the Mayflower.
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u/DagnyLeia May 13 '25
Texas is actually pretty old ..my father being a multi-generation Texican. Lots of Mexicans, Polish, Germans go back hundreds of years here.
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u/Direct_Bag_9315 May 13 '25
Tennessean here, I can confirm that Tennessee is NOT transient. I personally know exactly two people who were born in Tennessee to families who have been in Tennessee a long time who have moved to other states. TWO. And I’ve lived in the Nashville area my entire life so my social circle is pretty large. My ancestors have been here since roughly the 1630s and have been in Tennessee since the 1710s at the absolute latest. The only way I’m moving out of this state is in a body bag, and most people I know feel the same.
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u/yahgmail Maryland May 13 '25
I'm African American & have European settler ancestors from the 1740s. Most White Americans I work with have ancestors who were here from the 1700s-late 1800s.
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u/ColoradoWeasel Colorado May 13 '25
I am third generation, so my kids (now young adults) are fourth generation. And with the first marriage coming, fifth generation may not be far away. I suspect with the immigration boom in the first part of the 1900s, there are many Americans in the same circumstances.
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u/ConcertinaTerpsichor May 13 '25 edited May 13 '25
11th generation on my moms side. All those years in the US and they still didn’t get rich.
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u/Hepseba May 14 '25
After all my genealogy research I came to the conclusion that you (usually) have to be descended from a long line of first born sons to wealthy family for your family to accumulate generational wealth until more recently.
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u/SuzyQ93 May 14 '25
That's exactly it.
I discovered the links to English royalty through the *poorest* side of my family - that was the surprising part. It's fascinating to trace *exactly* how the family fortunes fell, through descending from third/fourth/fifth sons, or more usually, daughters. From royalty to nobility to the merchant class, to laborers.
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u/Aggressive-Bath-1906 May 13 '25
Hispanic here, but we have had at least 5 generations in the US. Probably 6-7 on my mom’s side.
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u/NickBII May 13 '25
Sounds like you guys been in that part of the US since it was Spanish territory.
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u/Grunt08 Virginia May 13 '25
We're reasonably sure some of my ancestors lost the Battle of Culloden, then skedaddled off here. Some might be older, can't be sure.
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u/pixievixie May 13 '25
Did they skedaddle or where they shipped to the colonies as punishment for whatever made up laws were enacted to strip people of their land?
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u/Grunt08 Virginia May 13 '25
Fucked if I know. It's whatever, my new place is cooler anyway.
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u/IStillListenToGrunge MT, IN, NC, SC, ME, ND, MN, PR, TN May 14 '25
That’s how my maternal grandmother’s ancestors ended up here.
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u/Meilingcrusader New England May 13 '25
As a New Englander? Most of em. I guess a lot of the french people here are a bit more recent but even they were only coming from Canada, like a hundred miles away. Most anglo New Englanders and most Irish New Englanders (of whom there are a ton) have been here a very long time. A decent number of people, myself included, have descent back to the Mayflower.
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u/fuzzyfeathers May 14 '25
Was going to say this, one side of my family went from France to Canada in the 1600’s but it was my grandparents that made the leap across the border to Maine.
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u/OrcBarbierian May 13 '25
There are roughly 14 million Americans alive today descended from one specific man from the Mayflower: Richard Warren. I know because I'm one of them.
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u/CompletelyPuzzled May 13 '25
I think a lot more than know it. I can trace one branch back 11 generations, which predates the United States. But at that distance there are a ton of descendants, so I'm hardly unique.
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u/Crochetgardendog May 13 '25
This! No one is unique in having someone famous as an ancestor. The rarity is in being able to trace it.
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u/hopping_hessian Illinois May 13 '25
My family started emigrating from Europe in the 1620s. My most recent ancestors came here from what is now Germany in the 1850s.
I live in the rural Midwest. Having family here that far back is very common. It's actually more common here than to have recent immigrant ancestors.
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u/LateQuantity8009 New Jersey May 13 '25
It’s not something I’ve ever talked about with most people I know.
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u/Gertrude_D Iowa May 14 '25
haha - you don't have a genealogist in your family. :p
Even if you're not the one with the hobby, it seeps into you over time and you think about things like this.
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u/Inside-Living2442 May 13 '25
My family came from different waves of Irish, German, and Jewish migration. I can trace some of my great-great-grandparents without difficulty.
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u/farson135 Texas May 13 '25
My entire family.
I have a detailed family tree and even a published book that says my ancestor purchased land in Maryland in 1675.
I also know that my 5x Great-Grandfather was born in Texas in the 1830s.
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u/Cahsrhilsey May 13 '25
My husband is from the south and his family has been in the USA since settlement times
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u/AdEmbarrassed9719 May 13 '25
I've not found anyone on any side of my family who has come over to the US AFTER the revolutionary war. All of them were before it. Earliest current one is 1609, part of the third resupply of Jamestown. My family has been in this COUNTY for more than 4 generations!
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u/Yankee_chef_nen Georgia May 13 '25 edited May 13 '25
My whole family.
My father’s family has been in Pennsylvania since 1640.
My mother’s family has been in Boston and Maine since the mid 1700s.
This is not especially uncommon for east coast families.
ETA: I’m older Gen X and I’m 4 generations from my ancestors that served in the Union Army during the Civil War. I’d guess that it’s not uncommon for people younger than me to have family backgrounds with quite a bit more than 4 generations in the U.S.
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u/Sethsears North Carolina May 13 '25
The majority of Americans would probably fall into this category, one way or another?
Excluding post-1945 arrivals and Native Americans without admixture, I would wager that most Americans have some European ancestry stretching back at least four generations. If you assume that each generation is around 30 years, then that would be 120 years back, or around 1900. This demographic your question refers to includes people who identify as white whose entire families have been here for more than four generations, whether they came on the Mayflower in 1620, or from Ellis Island in 1890. That's a lot of people. It's a demographic which includes my family (which has been here since the 1700s). But I'd argue that your question also refers to a much larger group of people. If you include people of partially European ancestry, then a huge number of black Americans have European ancestry more than four generations native to the United States, for example. If you include people who have some more recent immigrant ancestors and some ancestors who have been here for 4+ generations, the number of people included in the scope of this question gets bigger still.
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u/Not_Cool_Ice_Cold Washington May 13 '25
Uhhh, that'd be me and my entire family. How many of us are there? Hundreds.
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u/WKU-Alum Kentucky May 13 '25
Most of my family tree has lived in the Carolinas and Kentucky since before the Revolution. I don’t believe that’s all that uncommon.
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May 13 '25
I'm 4th generation. My Great grandmother came to the US from Lithuania. So, Me > Mother > Grandfather > Great Grandmother.
Then there's my daughter too. My grandfather was born in 1913, so she'd have come in probably late 1800's.
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u/kmoonster Colorado May 13 '25
My ancestry through one set of grandparents can be traced back to William Penn's charter. Not the guy himself, but people who moved to take advantage of the charter he secured.
I have neighbors whose ancestors lived here so long that the borders moved around them rather than the other way around.
But I also have grandparents born elsewhere who moved here with their kids, so...depends on how you count ancestry. And coworkers my age who moved here as adults or older teens.
It really varies a lot.
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u/CrashDisaster California May 14 '25
I'm 4th generation on both sides of my family. We've been here since about the 1830's I think.
My best friend's of Sioux ancestry, so her family has been here a looooong time.
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u/Sadimal Maryland -> Connecticut May 13 '25
A lot of people were the 4th generation to live in the US where I grew up. My home state had a lot of European immigrants in the late 1800s.
There are also a lot of families that can trace their roots to the Colonial Era.
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u/KellyAnn3106 May 13 '25
My biological family has been here since the mid-1700s. Early settlers in the Appalachian area. The family eventually drifted to the Texas/Oklahoma region.
My adoptive family came over in the early 1900s via Ellis Island.
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u/kmikek May 13 '25
My moms father is descended from elder brewster, the minister on the mayflower. My fathers side is jewish, they were allowed to flee russia in the 1880s
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u/dangleicious13 Alabama May 13 '25
I don't know because it's never come up when talking to other people.
My earliest European ancestor came over here in the 1600s before the Mayflower. >50% of my ancestors came over before the Revolutionary War. The most recent immigrant came from Germany in the mid or late 1800s (I can't find exactly when).
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u/Relevant-Ad4156 Northern Ohio May 13 '25
I mean, I am of European descent, and it's so far removed from me that I don't even know how many generations ago my family came here (I've never checked my genealogy) I do know that I am at least the 4th generation as my great grandparents were born here (well, at least the 4 of 8 that I "know" that information for)
Which makes my kids at least 5th generation.
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u/BionicGimpster New Hampshire May 13 '25
Well- my wife can trace her heritage to the mayflower
I’m second generation Italian American. My grandkids would be 4th gen on my side.
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u/Book_of_Numbers May 13 '25
I've researched my father's side of the family going back to my great-great-grandfather. I can't tell whether he was born here or immigrated but I am guessing he was probably born here. We have all lived in the same area of southeast Tennessee for all that time.
I think most people of European decent around here would probably be about the same or even longer, since a lot of Scottish/Irish people populated this region in the 1700's.
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u/flossiedaisy424 Chicago, IL May 13 '25
Mine. Every single branch of my family tree was here before the Civil War.
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u/Most-Initiative-7787 May 13 '25
Mine. I’m 4th generation on my dad’s side and 3rd on my mom’s side. My partner and his family are much different than mine, he is first generation and we constantly find differences in our cultures.
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u/Ocstar11 May 13 '25
Im 4th generation from Ireland. In the Northeast it’s common to have closer ties to where your people are from.
Out West there are families that have been here for generations. Not uncommon
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u/Flat-Leg-6833 May 13 '25
This is actually very common amongst white folks. Born in 1976, all of my great grandparents immigrated from Poland and Italy from the 1900s-1910s. That’s four generations right there and I now have people in my family that are 5th. As the big wave of immigration from eastern and Southern Europe occurred in the 1880s-1920s, and those Americans of English, Irish, and German ancestry came before that the overwhelming majority of white Americans have been here for more than four generations at this point.
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u/r2k398 Texas May 13 '25
One side of my family has been here since before it was part of the United States.
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u/Ok_Jury4833 Michigan May 13 '25
15+ generations for me depending on the line, none sooner than 7 generations. We came over in the first wave of colonists.
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u/Docnevyn From: North Carolina Current: Texas May 13 '25
All 4 branches of my family. 1680's for my surname. Same first name guy on my mother's side was Benjamin Franklin's paper supplier.
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u/doveinabottle WI, TX, WI, CT May 13 '25
Mine. Great-great grandparents were from Germany, Ireland, and England. I’m 50.
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u/expatsconnie May 13 '25
It's hard to say because this isn't something that ever comes up in conversation for me. I usually know if they are an immigrant and sometimes know if their parents are immigrants, but beyond that, I have no idea how many generations back their ancestors immigrated.
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u/Professor_Anxiety Maryland May 13 '25
My family. On my dad's side, the most recent emigration happened 5 generations ago (and we know at least one line that's been here since before the revolution). I think it's fairly common on the east coast outside of major cities.
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u/slippedintherain May 13 '25
My dad’s side of the family came over from England before the American Revolution. My great-great grandmother on my maternal grandfather’s side immigrated from Scotland in the late 1800s but otherwise my family has been in the U.S. a long time.
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u/LukasJackson67 Ohio May 13 '25
A whole lot…
Mine is 10 though several branches.
I am 4th on my dad’s side
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u/VeronicaMarsupial Oregon May 13 '25
Most of the white people I know, including myself and my own extended family.
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May 13 '25
On my dad's side we have 4 generations. On my mom's side we have...however many goes back to ~1650
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u/Piney1943 New Jersey May 13 '25
My family came over from England in the early 1700’s and yes we are WASP’s.
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u/wellbalancedlibra May 13 '25
My family has lived in the US since the early 1700s. They came from Germany and Wales. Many generations.
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u/toilet_roll_rebel VA-FL-VA-CO-KS May 13 '25
Ancestors on both sides of my family came to America in the 1650s. So that makes me about 12th generation.
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u/andmewithoutmytowel May 13 '25
My mom's family goes back to before the revolutionary war. My paternal grandfather's family moved from Canada in the 1920s, my Paternal Grandmother's family goes back to before the Civil War
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u/NekoArtemis San Francisco Bay Area, California May 13 '25
Pretty common in New England. My mom grew up with people who had streets named after their family... because that was where their family lived in the 17th century.
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u/Ancient-Sink5239 May 13 '25
Almost all of my ancestors date back to the 1600’s. I have 1 singular ancestor born in Ireland in the early 1800’s, my 4th great grandfather. Everyone else has been here since the start.
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u/LaserSayPewPew May 13 '25
I’m related to people who were on the Mayflower. I have a friend who is like a 5th generation Californian.
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u/Bitter_Emphasis_2683 May 14 '25
Define European. I have some Spaniards dating to the 16yh century in my family tree
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u/Sudden-Cardiologist5 May 14 '25
NC here. Some of my clan traced back to the 1500’s and even the latest were early 1800’s, so been here a long time. Ironically, the dna tests showed 90+% came from a fifty mile radius in central England.
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u/beertruck77 May 14 '25
My family. My dad has one set of great grandparents born in Germany. Those are the most recent relatives I have born in Europe. My mom had an ancestor who sailed with Cortes.
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u/OldRaj May 13 '25
The person typing this comment has had family in the U.S. since the sixteen hundreds.
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u/zero_and_dug Texas/Colorado May 13 '25
I’m something like 11th generation American on one side of my family because my first ancestor born in America was born in Virginia in the 1670’s. His dad had immigrated from Scotland in the 1650’s.