Ancestry

1. How is the ancestry question asked?
2. Why isn’t my group listed in your ancestry tables?
3. Can I see a list of all the ancestry groups that the Census Bureau collects?
4. What is First Ancestry, Second Ancestry, and Total Ancestry?
5. What is Single Ancestry, Multiple Ancestry, and People Reporting Ancestry?

The Census Bureau currently collects ancestry data through the American Community Survey (ACS). The ACS question on ancestry is "What is your ancestry or ethnic origin?" The text after the question provides examples of particular ethnic groups. The response area for the question consists of two write-in lines in which respondents can report ancestry or ancestries with which they identify. We code up to two ancestries per person. If a person reports more than two ancestries, we generally take the first two. For example, if a person reports German, Italian, and Scottish, we would code German and Italian.

• See the ACS question on ancestry [GIF - 5.2K]
• See the entire ACS questionnaire
• See the Census 2000 question on ancestry [GIF - 2.2K]
• See the entire Census 2000 questionnaire [PDF - 501k]

In 1990, the ancestry question was the same as it was in 2000. However, the examples given were different.

• See the 1990 Census question on ancestry [JPG - 137K]
• See the entire 1990 Census questionnaire [PDF - 599k]

The question in 1980 was "What is your ancestry?" This differed from the following censuses in its not asking about "ethnic origin."

• See the 1980 Census question on ancestry [JPG - 64K]
• See the entire 1980 Census questionnaire [PDF - 549k]
• See questionnaires from censuses prior to 1980 in "Measuring America: The Decennial Censuses From 1790 to 2000" [PDF - 3Mb]

Some groups are not listed in our tables because too few people identified with them. There are hundreds of ancestry groups, and given space limitations in our tables, we cannot show all groups in every product. Issues of confidentiality also arise when the size of groups are too small to show.

Census data on race and Hispanic groups come from the race and Hispanic origin questions. In most of our ancestry tables we do not show groups that are shown elsewhere in the race and Hispanic tables. For some products such as the Ancestry: 2000 brief, we show all ancestry responses, including race and Hispanic groups, above a certain size.

We do not tabulate data on religious groups. If people write in a religious group as an ancestry response, it is included under "Other ancestries."

The list below shows all of the ancestries that we collect, along with the code we assign each ancestry.

• http://www.census.gov/acs/www/Downloads/data_documentation/CodeLists/2010_ACS_Code_Lists.pdf [PDF]

"First Ancestry" is a designation we use on some data products to show the groups that were reported first in response to the ancestry question. Likewise, "Second Ancestry" represents groups that were reported second. For example, if someone wrote in Jamaican and English, their First Ancestry would be Jamaican, and their Second Ancestry would be English. "Total Ancestry" is the sum of responses, or the total number of times Jamaican was reported.

Tables titled “Single Ancestry” show people who reported only one ancestry. Tables titled “Multiple Ancestry” show only people who reported more than one response. Tables titled “People Reporting Ancestry” show everyone who reported an ancestry, regardless of whether their response was a single or multiple response. The “People Reporting Ancestry” table differs from the “Total Ancestry Reported” table, in that the latter table double-counts people within categories if they reported two ancestries that fall within the same category.

For example, here is how you would interpret the data for a particular group, such as Lebanese, on each of these three tables:

• People Reporting Single Ancestry – the number of people who gave Lebanese as their only ancestry.
• People Reporting Multiple Ancestry – the number of people who gave Lebanese as part of a multiple-ancestry response.
• People Reporting Ancestry – the number of people who reported Lebanese, regardless of whether it was their only response, or part of a multiple-ancestry response.