Lots of us Americans are mutts - because America is an idea - not a race or ethnicity... so we can all qualify if we decide to embrace the idea.
My ancestors include Cherokee from both sides (different distances) and then Finnish (least part but the patronym) Scotch Irish English French, and also someplace called “the old country” but no one knows what the heck that means... Germany or Austria or someplace like that, we suspect...
typical white guy...
After trying to trace my family tree for some time, I can only conclude that various bits of my ancestry are open to question. IOW, I'm a "mutt" at best, going downhill from there. I wonder if my (known) English forebearers would have been mortified at the thought of their blood commingling with Irishmen (and vice-versa), or if they both would have blanched at the very idea of miscegenation with Germans, who may or may not have been not happy about their kinfolk boinking a Scot... and would they all have raised bloody H about grafting a bunch of clodhoppers from Noordholland into the stock?
Supposedly there was a "Native American" tossed into the blender in late-frontier Ohio, and I can only imagine some ancient progenitor's musings about a descendant being a "typical white person." Well, you can't pick your family, and like it or not, their DNA ended up right here in one pale package who always thought that "American" without a perceding hyphen was a point of pride. As you said, it is - or was - "an idea."
And a worthy one.
Mr. niteowl77
Who says or where stands that some ancestors are from “the old country”? There´s a region of Hamburg called “das alte Land” (literally translated: the old country/land). Is that a possible location? But then again, there may be several regions worldwide called like that.