Americans are a melting pot of ancestries, according to the Census Bureau's American Community Survey (ACS). Each year the survey asks a representative sample of Americans to identify their ancestry, with multiple responses allowed. Here are the ten largest ancestry groups, according to the 2019 ACS...
10 largest ancestry groups, 2019
1. German: 40.3 million (12.3%)
2. Irish: 30.4 million (9.2%)
3. English: 23.6 million (7.2%)
4. Italian: 16.1 million (4.9%)
5. Polish: 9.0 million (2.7%)
6. French: 7.1 million (2.2%)
7. Scottish: 5.1 million (1.6%)
8. Norwegian: 4.3 million (1.3%)
9. Dutch: 3.6 million (1.1%)
10. Swedish, 3.5 million (1.1%)
The ancestry tables of the American Community Survey do not include several major groups such as Mexican or Chinese. That's because the information about those groups is collected separately through the survey's race and Hispanic origin questions rather than the ancestry question. Those who report being Hispanic or Asian, for example, are asked to identify their place of origin—such as Mexico or China. If these responses were included in the ancestry list, the top 10 would look very different. Mexican would be in 2nd place (37.2 million, 11.3%), Puerto Rican would be in 8th place (5.8 million, 1.8%), and Chinese would be in 9th place (5.2 million, 1.6%). Norwegian, Dutch, and Swedish would fall off the top-10 list.
Source: Census Bureau, 2019 American Community Survey
