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Is it possible that at least some of these "German last names" are jewish families? Many Jewish Americans have names of german derivation.
Some of them maybe. I can think of one, Trotz, that's the last name of a famous lawyer in Memphis. But there are plenty of others that I know, and they're not Jewish: Hartman, Meyer, Lintz, Schwager, Broyles, Deardorff, Greulich, Bilderbeck, Humerickhouse, Troxel, Schneider, Shultz, Fritz, Hoffmeyer, Gruenwald, Mueller, Grueser, Klusmeyer, Weber, Netzel.
I just went through a few pages of my facebook friends, lol. I mean there are a TON. And those are from all over TN, not just Memphis.
Some of them maybe. I can think of one, Trotz, that's the last name of a famous lawyer in Memphis. But there are plenty of others that I know, and they're not Jewish: Hartman, Meyer, Lintz, Schwager, Broyles, Deardorff, Greulich, Bilderbeck, Humerickhouse, Troxel, Schneider, Shultz, Fritz, Hoffmeyer, Gruenwald, Mueller, Grueser, Klusmeyer, Weber, Netzel.
I just went through a few pages of my facebook friends, lol. I mean there are a TON. And those are from all over TN, not just Memphis.
I'm going to take a guess, and say that these were recent transplants from other areas, perhaps the very Midwest right above them. Historically, there just haven't been any real big numbers in the southern states, but in the America of 2010, mass migration has become the rule, and not the exception.
I'm going to take a guess, and say that these were recent transplants from other areas, perhaps the very Midwest right above them. Historically, there just haven't been any real big numbers in the southern states, but in the America of 2010, mass migration has become the rule, and not the exception.
Yeah I guess for some of them, but a few of them are some of the most small-town Southern people I know.
There are people of German decent everywhere. It's just that there's a higher percentage of them in the Midwest and NY/PA than in the South.
"American" might be the most common heritage in Tennessee, but it's only like 20 percent of the population putting it.
I've seen around 15 more German surnames on facebook since I posted that first list ^ Now I'm not gonna stop noticing them, lol. There are a lot here, definitely not compared to the Midwest, but Germans are probably in the top 3 or 4 ancestries down here. It's probably English, Scotch-Irish, then German. A lot of Southerners put Irish, but they're usually Scotch-Irish.
Probably true, and I'll bet that the vast majority of those "Americans" are Anglo-Saxon Protestants.
Just a hunch..
That is probobly at least 90% of them are of some form of Protestant from the British Isles. Catholics seem to have much more connection with their ancestry which is why very few would put down American, history also plays a role in this too.
There is more English ancestory than German, but how much German you see depends on your location. If you are in Ma or NY you may not see much German at all. If you are in Wisconsin or Michigan you might think German is dominant. The entire midwest has settled heavily by Germans in the last half of the 19th century. There is even a tourist town in Michigan called Frankenmuth that celebrates this fact extensively. If you visit there you will find every aspect of the trasplanted German culture on display.
I think there is likely more English ancestry than people may think and the English did keep coming to this nation after 1800. However in part it depends on what we mean.
The slave-owners of the South were far more likely to be English than German and I think they were disproportionately English overall. However even Halle Berry, who has a maternal grandmother from Derbyshire, is not usually thought of as English-American. So blacks whose ancestors include English-Americans slave-owners are certainly not be seen as partly English, understandably not of course.
Also the term "WASP" has gained connotations of wealth and aristocracy many may seek to avoid. My father was raised as a "WASP" in that he was raised white, largely English-descended, and Protestant. (Low-church though, Baptist) However he was certainly not "the image of WASP." His parents went to California during the Great Depression and he was raised in the Arkansas mountains. His "WASP" grandmother married at like 15 to a man who whittled and they had a whole mess of kids. His own father played like old-time Ozark music and they raised chickens. Many of the old ballads of Appalachia are actually English rather than Scottish as many English did actually go there too. I'm thinking possibly the English who went to places like Appalachia were more "low-church" like my Dad's ancestors. Among the states Maine and Utah have a great deal of English-descended people.
Still looking it up America received a great deal of German immigration so possibly German is greater than English.
There is more English ancestory than German, but how much German you see depends on your location. If you are in Ma or NY you may not see much German at all. If you are in Wisconsin or Michigan you might think German is dominant. The entire midwest has settled heavily by Germans in the last half of the 19th century. There is even a tourist town in Michigan called Frankenmuth that celebrates this fact extensively. If you visit there you will find every aspect of the trasplanted German culture on display.
You don't see much in MA ( a little around Springfield in western MA), but you'll see quite a bit across NY, especially in Albany, Syracuse, Rochester and Buffalo, all of which had German sections of town from the 19th-century immigration; in Wisconsin, German culture is everywhere ( I lived there for a while). But if you add up all the various types of Anglo-Americans ( English, Welsh, Scottish, Scot-Irish, even the Mayflower types, the ones who call themselves "American"), I think that their numbers are probably greater.
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