Timeline for What percentage of US population descended from immigration per immigration year?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
28 events
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| Oct 25, 2021 at 17:14 | comment | added | phoog | @Michael yes, statistically edge cases are probably negligible. Less so might be the criteria for establishing the year of immigration when someone arrives as a nonimmigrant or as an illegal immigrant and later adjusts status. Another edge case, my uncle, born abroad as a US citizen to a US citizen mother and alien father, who later immigrated. Legally speaking, my uncle was never an immigrant. (My father, however, did not acquire US citizenship at birth, so did immigrate, but decades later the law changed to grant him US citizenship retroactively. Where does he stand under this definition?) | |
| Oct 25, 2021 at 17:09 | comment | added | jamesqf | @phoog: That's my point. Your definition of immigrant isn't my definition, and probably a lot of people have different definitions still. Which made the question as originally asked impossible to answer. The current version is much better, and so could be answered if the data is available. | |
| Oct 25, 2021 at 17:03 | comment | added | Michael | @phoog, more directly, to your point. I'm curious about average ancestry of today's Americans with respect to some points in history. Imagine questions like this one: "Out of 100 Americans today, how many have descended from immigration after the Civil War? Ditto after American Revolution? Ditto after WW1, WW2, etc?" For that purpose leaving US and coming back matters only if your ancestors left after the even in question and returned after that event. Which, I bet, is going to be negligible. | |
| Oct 25, 2021 at 16:56 | comment | added | Michael | @phoog, great question. Very relevant for, say, Israel, where almost entire population was forced out in the 2nd century AD and returned mostly in 20th century. Not too relevant to US though: I'm not aware of any massive emigration of US citizens. | |
| Oct 24, 2021 at 16:21 | comment | added | phoog | @Jamesqf depending on how you define "immigrant." Someone whose direct male ancestors crossed the Bering land bridge 20 millennia ago doesn't fit my definition of "immigrant" if we're only considering male ancestors. If we define it in terms of US law, nobody whose ancestors settled in what is now the US before 1776 is descended from immigrants. Which raises another question for Michael: what if your ancestors immigrated to the US, then went to another country for one or more generations, and then returned? | |
| Oct 24, 2021 at 16:16 | comment | added | phoog | Suppose your father immigrated 20 years after your grandfather, or vice versa? | |
| Aug 25, 2021 at 16:06 | vote | accept | Michael | ||
| Aug 25, 2021 at 16:02 | answer | added | totalMongot | timeline score: 0 | |
| Aug 24, 2021 at 22:05 | comment | added | justCal | A start on some loose numbers can be found in the US Census Bureau publication(pdf) - The Foreign-Born Population by U.S. Region, 1850-2016. | |
| Aug 24, 2021 at 15:53 | comment | added | jamesqf | @Gort the Robot: If that's what the OP actually wants to know, then s/he should correct the question. | |
| Aug 24, 2021 at 15:21 | comment | added | user15620 | @jamesqf I think the OP wants to know something more granular. ("how many Americans descended from post-1865 immigration") | |
| Aug 24, 2021 at 15:19 | comment | added | user15620 | Note that immigration isn't always gender balanced (though in the US it often was). This means you might get a completely different answer from looking at Y chromosomes or mitochondrial DNA. | |
| Aug 24, 2021 at 12:34 | comment | added | bgwiehle | A complication is the assumption that an ancestor's immigration date applies to all their descendants -- it's rarely that simple. | |
| Aug 24, 2021 at 9:00 | history | tweeted | twitter.com/StackHistory/status/1430092533250633729 | ||
| Aug 24, 2021 at 8:51 | answer | added | Roger V. | timeline score: 3 | |
| Aug 24, 2021 at 3:57 | comment | added | jamesqf | ALL Americans (other than those who actually immigrated themselves) are descended from immigrants. | |
| Aug 23, 2021 at 22:51 | comment | added | Michael | @T.E.D., I added "per immigration year" in the title. Suppose there are 3 people, T, E, and D. T's great-...-great-grandfather arrived on Mayflower. E's great-grandfather escaped pogroms in 1907 by sailing to Ellis Island. And D's father climbed across the fence to Texas in 1990, and two years later D was born. So if I was asking a question "what percentage of the group T, E, and D descended from immigration after immigration year 1900?", the answer would be 2: E and D. If the question was "what percentage descended from immigration after 1950" the answer would be 1: only D. | |
| Aug 23, 2021 at 22:45 | history | edited | Michael | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
edited title
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| Aug 23, 2021 at 22:12 | comment | added | T.E.D.♦ | Perhaps I'm just being dumb, but I've reread the question in light of your comments, and I'm afraid I still don't understand what you're asking. | |
| Aug 23, 2021 at 19:10 | comment | added | Michael | I think it should be possible to figure that out from migration policy data. Basically, for each decade take the immigration percentage over (birth rate + immigration percentage), and integrate over time. | |
| Aug 23, 2021 at 17:40 | comment | added | MCW♦ | for the single period (post 1865), you might be able to estimate by subtracting known immigration. | |
| Aug 23, 2021 at 16:59 | comment | added | Amorphous Blob | So, for example, If my paternal grandfather immigrated in 1912, us 5 surviving siblings of my father and his brother would count as "1910"? Dang, yeah, that's a heck of a lot of researching and analysis. I guess whichever ancestral line you choose, the averages would come out in the wash, but there's also the 5-10% of not-the-real-father births to throw a wrench in the works. | |
| Aug 23, 2021 at 16:58 | comment | added | MCW♦ | I find the question interesting. I think you'd have to start by graphing the change in US population each year, then estimate the split between changes due to migration and figure out how to allocate the births and deaths. | |
| Aug 23, 2021 at 16:55 | history | edited | MCW♦ | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
Simplified title; there is no need to ask for a methodology. All answers on H:SE should include methodology or sources. Please revert if I've damaged the question.
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| Aug 23, 2021 at 16:38 | comment | added | Michael | @T.E.D., perhaps I wasn't clear on the question. I'd like to find out how many Americans descended from immigrants starting a certain year, which is a function of the year. If the year was 1498, you would be right. If the year was 2001, only those who were born to the 21st century immigrants would count. | |
| Aug 23, 2021 at 16:09 | comment | added | T.E.D.♦ | Calculate the % that report single-race Native American on the census, and subtract that number from 100? | |
| Aug 23, 2021 at 16:03 | history | edited | MCW♦ | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Aug 23, 2021 at 15:59 | history | asked | Michael | CC BY-SA 4.0 |