European American - Origins

Origins

Since 1607, some 57 million immigrants have come to the United States from other lands. Approximately 10 million passed through on their way to some other place or returned to their original homelands, leaving a net gain of some 47 million people. Prior to 1960, the overwhelming majority came from Europe or European descent from Canada. In 1960 for example, 75.0% of foreign-born population in the U.S came from the region of Europe.

Before 1881, the vast majority of immigrants, almost 86% of the total, arrived from northwest Europe, principally Great Britain, Ireland, Germany, and Scandinavia. The years between 1881 and 1893 the pattern shifted, in the sources of U.S. “New immigration”. Between 1894 and 1914, immigrants from southern, central, and eastern Europe accounted for 69% of the total.

European Americans are largely descended from colonial American stock supplemented by two sizable waves of immigration from Europe. Approximately 53 percent of European Americans today are of colonial ancestry, and 47 percent are descended from European, Canadian, or Mexican (or any Latin American) immigrants who have come to the U.S. since 1790 (and post-independence Mexico supplied Mexican-American immigration since 1890). Today, each of the three different branches of immigrants are most common in different parts of the country.