[SunkenCiv]

Here's some rambling thoughts I hope will be helpful.

About half of American white folks have German ancestry; in Michigan, the largest ethnic group (of those claiming an ethnic origin for, I think the 1980 census) was German, but it's higher yet, because a number of people of German ancestry stealthily changed to Dutch (or stopped talking about it altogether) in WWI or (sometimes) WWII. There's a town near here which prior to WWI was named Berlin, and the annual fair is still the Berlin Fair; but the people in the town renamed it to Marne, after the river where the German advance was (more or less) stopped.

British Isles ancestry is found throughout the country, however, it possible that it is predominant only in parts of the NE, in parts of the Old South, and in snowbird / retirement destinations (and that, only part of the year).

[Wallace T.]

Another pocket of English ancestry predominance in America is in Utah and areas of the adjacent states settled by Mormons. The Latter Day Saints were originally recruited from upstate New York, Vermont, northern Ohio, and similar areas largely settled by Yankees in the original sense, descendants of 17th Century English Puritan settlers. The early Mormon converts were the core group that followed Brigham Young to Utah. Through several generations of large families, they built up the numbers necessary to dominate Utah, southern Idaho, eastern Nevada, etc.

Their non-Mormon, mostly liberal Protestant or Unitarian kinsmen who stayed in the Northeast had small families for the most part. As a result, Catholicism is the predominant religion of the Northeast (except PA, with its strong German influence and ME, where the old-line Yankees are still numerous) and Irish-Americans or Italian-Americans are the predominant ethnicity.