Are there really more Americans of German ancestry than English ancestry?

[politicus]

It is typical for mixed marriages between the incumbent dominant group, and new groups to be predominately female-male.   That is, there were more English female-German male marriages than English male-German female, and similarly for Americans and Italians, Whites and Blacks, Whites and Asians.

This sounds a bit odd. Who did the remaining WASP men marry? If WASP women married immigrants in higher numbers than WASP men, this would leave a rump of males from the dominant WASP group with no partners.

[politicus]

I don't how much I should go into all this Sleswick-Holstein business because it probably interests few people, but there are a number of inaccuracies:

Lauenburg was Danish (as in part of the Danish realm, not the Kingdom of Denmark) 1815-1864.

The ethnically Danish population in central and northern Sleswick had a higher emigration ratio than ethnic Germans after 1864, as is often the case with ethnic minorities in an occupied territory, so not all S-H emigrants 1864-1920 can be considered German.

The population of Sleswick-Holstein and Lauenburg was around 40% of the total in the realm of Denmark prior to 1864, if you deduct ethnic Danes and Frisians from Sleswick and take into consideration that S-H was the wealthiest part of the realm (giving less incentive to emigrate) you are unlikely to get more than 25% "German" emigration from the Danish realm.

A substantial number of Danes emigrated from Hamburg = embarking from a German port.

The Danish government never needed, nor expected, mass emigration to the Danish West Indian Islands (or any other of its small tropical colonies, which were sold by 1850 anyway) and neither did it need emigration to the North Atlantic colonies.

[politicus]

Would persons from Schleswig-Holstein have names ending in -sen?

Most of them, especially when  from the coast - just as the Dutch and the Danes.

Just look at the list in the link below, and you know what I mean ..

In addition to my previous post, here some links for those interested in further information:

a:) Name list with additional biographical background on 75 German colonists who settled in Nieuw Amsterdam before 1667;

Or check out this nice mapping tool on the geographic distribution of last names in Germany (check out Carstensen, Hansen, Hinrichsen, Jansen,  Janzen, Johannsen and Petersen).

P.S: If you are looking for a way to discern Schleswig-Holsteiner and Danes by last name, you can to some extent do it by looking at the paternal root. A Pedersen, e.g., is most likely Danish, while there is a good chance that a Petersen is from Schleswig (-Holstein). Same with Poulsen and Paulsen, Christensen and Christiansen. Bjoernsen/ Bjarnesen, Brodersen, Soerensen or Ingwersen would also rather be Danish names.
Variations of the ending, e.g. 'ssen' or 'tzen' are indicating a Dutch name, though they are not completely uncommon in Schleswig-Holstein as well. A typical Dutch name that is rarely found in Schleswig-Holstein is Fransen / Franssen / Frantzen.

You cant really put it like that since the population in most of Schleswig was (pre-WW2) mostly of Danish descent. Prior to the 1800-1840 language change Danish dialects where spoken in most of present German Schleswig (Sudschleswig). Scleswig-Holsteiner as a German identity is a 19th century nationalist idea and before that the population saw no discrepancy between their Danish dialect and identifyng as Sleswickers.
The exceptions being on the West coast and islands, where people where of Frisian descent and the far south where the German population is either dating from the early Middle Ages or on the peninsula Schwanzen/Svansen is from the late 13th or 14th century.

So basically the old -sen names are mostly Danish names from Sleswick or if they have a Frisian root like Bahnsen or Feddersen, they are Frisian.

Christiansen and Petersen are typical Danish names and claiming they should be an indication of German descent is incorrect. Paulsen and Fransen are also widely used in Denmark and are in most cases just spelling variations.

[politicus]

The ethnically Danish population in central and northern Sleswick had a higher emigration ratio than ethnic Germans after 1864, as is often the case with ethnic minorities in an occupied territory, so not all S-H emigrants 1864-1920 can be considered German.

Not sure about that. According to the map from my quote above, the highest emigration rate between 1867 and 1885 was from Dithmarschen (13.2% of total population), followed by Tonder (11.5%), Plön (7.8%) and Oldenburg (7.8%).  Apenrade was 7%, as was Husum. I think it is fair to say that for a number of reasons (seafaring tradition, pressure/ land losses from floods, etc.), the whole west coast had elevated emigration rates. And the quasi-feudal situation in rural East Holstein was apparently leading to higher emigration rates, than pressure on the Danish minority in Apenrade, Hadersleben or Sonderburg. That's not to say that it wasn't primarily ethnic Danes who left Husum - we will never know. What is known is that the advertising brochures for emigration that were circulating there were in German.

I was talking about Sleswick here, comparing the German speaking and the minority population in the province. Tønder/Tonder had a large Danish and some Frisian population. Åbenrå/Apenrade mostly Danish. Husum mostly Frisian. It is always stated as a fact by Danish historians that the minority had a higher emigration rate and I doubt they would do that without proper sources, so its not a "we will never know" thing.

The population on the coast were bilingual or trilingual (South Jutlandic dialect, Low German dialect, North Frisian) and Standard German was a foreign language for all of them since the German speakers spoke Low German dialects, so the language of the brochures is not an indicator of their ethnicity. Standard German was just the common written language (learnt in school)

NB: Central Sleswick is incl. the central part of the west coast (what we call Mellemslesvig in Danish), not just the interior.

The population of Sleswick-Holstein and Lauenburg was around 40% of the total in the realm of Denmark prior to 1864, if you deduct ethnic Danes and Frisians from Sleswick and take into consideration that S-H was the wealthiest part of the realm (giving less incentive to emigrate) you are unlikely to get more than 25% "German" emigration from the Danish realm.

I don't think it is about "wealthy S_H" versus "poorer rest of Denmark"- Copenhagen or Odense were surely no less wealthy than were Altona, Wandsbek or Kiel. and will most likely have had equally low emigration rates (around 2%) as the latter. The main pattern should have been West Coast (high emigration) vs. rural Geest (considerable emigration) vs. urban centres (low emigration) - in Holstein as in Schleswig as in Jutland. As such, a ratio of 240k  Danish emigrants (1890 US census) to 100-120 k Schleswig-Holstein emigrants is quite in line with overall population ratios and as such plausible.

Jutland was much poorer than Sleswick and Holstein, also if you compare the towns. The difference is smaller between the Islands and S-H, but still as a general rule the two duchies were more developed and wealthier (but of course that is on average with large variations). Odense and Copenhagen would have had large numbers of dirt poor proletarians.
 
I am not talking about the distribution between Denmark and Sleswick-Holstein, but between ethnic Danes (and ethnic Frisians for that matter) and ethnic Germans within the Danish realm. So a share of 25% "Germans" as in German speakers is a reasonable estimate. 1890 estimates are of little use determinig pre-1864 emigration patterns. Too many people arriving in the intermidiate periode.

The Danish government never needed, nor expected, mass emigration to the Danish West Indian Islands (or any other of its small tropical colonies, which were sold by 1850 anyway) and neither did it need emigration to the North Atlantic colonies.

Let me draw your attention to the "General-Patent wieder die Emigrationes nach den fremden Colonien in America" issued by the Danish King Frederik V on August 24, 1753.
I concede that this "patent" was most likely abolished long before the time in question here, but never say never .

I will say never, the mid 18th century is a completely different kettle of fish and is irrelevant for the era we are talking about here. Prior to the Napoleonic Wars Denmark-Norway was a medium power with quite different aspirations.

[politicus]

The mainland Scandinavian languages are basically pidgin languages by people who have spoken Old Norse languages but tried to sell their herring to Low Germanic people. On level of grammar there are big differences (in declination) that are easy to recognize, but wortschatz
is very similar.

Not quite sure if you are serious, but since there are no smileys:

They are far from pidgin languages. Only 30-35% of the vocabulary is of German origin. Even in Danish the Nordic words are the majority and this number is slightly higher in Swedish and Norwegian. So heavily influenced by Low German in the late middle ages, but thats it. English has lots of French words without being a French pidgin.

[politicus]

You cant really put it like that since the population in most of Schleswig was (pre-WW2) mostly of Danish descent. Prior to the 1800-1840 language change Danish dialects where spoken in most of present German Schleswig (Sudschleswig). Schleswig-Holsteiner as a German identity is a 19th century nationalist idea and before that the population saw no discrepancy between their Danish dialect and identifyng as Sleswickers.
The exceptions being on the West coast and islands, where people where of Frisian descent and the far south where the German population is either dating from the early Middle Ages or on the peninsula Schwanzen/Svansen is from the late 13th or 14th century.

So basically the old -sen names are mostly Danish names from Sleswick or if they have a Frisian root like Bahnsen or Feddersen, they are Frisian.

Christiansen and Petersen are typical Danish names and claiming they should be an indication of German descent is incorrect. Paulsen and Fransen are also widely used in Denmark and are in most cases just spelling variations.

Names on -sen are popular along the whole North Sea coast, down from the Flemish part of Belgium up to Norway. If you include the Swedish '-son', you may say that this type of name-building is typical for all Germanic languages (as, by the way, also for many Slavonic languages or, e.g. Georgian [-schwili means 'son']). The German name maps indicate indeed that such names are especially widespread across Frisia, but they are in no way limited to "ethnic" Danes or Frisians. My wife, e.g. is a Janzen, here ancestors have as long as my father-in-law remembers been living in a small village just west of Lübeck, while my Flemish cousin-in-law is a Janssen.

Not limited to, but remember that there is a difference between -zen, -ssen and -sen. The old Low German patronym is mainly -s as in Peters, Carstens etc. Most single s -sen names in Sleswick are either Danish or Frisians using the Danish naming custom, which became dominant among Frisians. There are some exceptions, like Classen, and things get complicated because Danish naming practice also influenced parts of Holstein, but generally -sen is indicative of Danish or Frisian heritage.

The language thing is very interesting and something I would like to learn more about. My impression has always been that the whole north-sea coast has traditionally been a continuum, where various West-Germanic dialects, including Flemish, Dutch, Dutch Low Saxon, Low German(Plattdeutsch) in its several variations (East Frisian, Hamburgisch, Holsteinisch), Anglo-Frisian, Schleswigsch, South Jutlandic, North Jutlandic and Norwegian (probably again various dialects)gradually blended from one into the next one without clearly discernible borders.  Apparently, during medieval times they were close enough to each other that, e.g., Simon van Utrecht could become mayor of Hamburg, or Peter Minuit (born west of Hamburg to Flemish parents) could serve as Governor of Nieuw Amsterdam and as well of New Sweden.  Transmitted by the Hanseatic League, Lübeck Low German served as lingua franca for most of Northern Europe.

The continuum existed to a certain extent, but there was still a clear difference between (Nordic) Danish dialects and (West Germanic) dialects of Low German since the vocabulary is different.

During the 18th century, Denmark was at least bi-lingual (farmers from my village in Holstein successfully went to the Copenhagen court against a nearby nobleman who had illegally taken over some village lands), with both German and Danish serving as official languages. Since I could not find any Danish-language reference to the Royal anti emigration patent I mentioned in my earlier post, it may even be that German was the only official language at the Danish Royal Court (I would be grateful if you could clarify this point).

The Danish Realm was a conglomerate state consisting of several parts. Sleswick-Holstein was administered in German (originally Low German) through the German Chancellory, while Denmark and Norway was administered in Danish through the Danish Chancellory. The German Chancellory was in charge of foreign affairs (being the more cosmopolitic ones  ).
Low German was used as an administrative language in Denmark-Norway proper, but disappeared in the late 17th century, after that Danish was the official language in the two kingdoms.
Your proclamtion likely exists in both languages if it concerns people in both S-H and the kingdoms.

The Danish elite was bilingual (or trilingual incl. French) and Copenhagen craftsmen and merchants generally knew German as Copenhagen was about 25% German in the 18th century. The common people were not bilingual.

Somewhen, somehow, this linguistic continuum broke up (again something I am eager to learn more about), which ultimately forced people to decide on one language and, with it, on their nationality.

There was a nationalist mobilisation from both sides in the 1830s and 1840s dividing the population in the duchy of Sleswick along nationality. But this mobilization came largely after the Germanisation of the Angel peninsula 1800-1840 where the greater social prestige and economic usability of the German language got most of the population to change to Low German leaving only a lower class Danish speaking rump)

They did so in the 1920 referendum (see map below), and that is the best source on national self-identification we have.

Its a source of national identity in 1920! But not of the situation in the 19th century in which the Germanisation of Southern Sleswick happened. In 1800 the areas north of Schlei/Dannewerk/Eider line spoke either Danish or Frisian dialects with the exception of the Eidersted Peninsula that had changed to Low German around 1700. This line gradually moved up to near the present border during the 19th century, with a small enclave of Danish speakers in the central moors and some Frisian speakers, mainly on the islands. The language change also meant a nationality change for most people.

I think we should stick to that rather than entering a linguistic discussion on whether Anglian (east of Schlewig town), Frisian, or South-Jutlandic are languages of their own, or Low German, or Danish dialects (most likely, they are all three at the same time, in the above sense of the linguistic continuum).  

Its not realy soomething you can seriously discuss. Anglian and South Jutlandic are (or in the case of the extinct Anglian were) Danish dialects, North Frisian is a language. Thats recognized by both German and Danish linguists. Continuum doesnt mean that you cant classify dialects into languages, just that are some similarities between neighbouring dialects. The idea that languages are pure modern constructions without any basis in pre-modern distinctions is rubbish in most cases. Especially in an area like Sleswick as the difference between Nordic and West Germanic languages is the sharpest break among the Germanic languages.    

As to individual last names, I hope you have read my text correctly (see passages marked in bold). Otherwise, I appreciate your amendments on name occurrence in Denmark, which I am not to knowledgeable about.

Yeah, I would still say that since Sleswickers (descending from pre-1945 Sleswick families) are mostly of Danish descent the distinction between Sleswick surnames and Danish surnames is pointless unless we are talking about Frisian names, like Bahnsen, or the special South Jutlandic versions of Danish names like Asmussen/Jessen/Nissen for Rasmussen/Jensen/Nielsen.

I dont think you can talk about Schleswig-Holstein family names, since Holsteinian names are (Low) German and old Sleswick surnames (north of Danewerk) are Danish or Frisian with a few exceptions.
So there are two historically distinct naming traditions in the two old duchies. Of course the area south of Schlei-Danewerk-Eider is historically German (see the times I gave earlier) and is similar to Holstein regarding surnames, probably with Eidersted as an exception due to its post-medieval language shift.

[politicus]

The mainland Scandinavian languages are basically pidgin languages by people who have spoken Old Norse languages but tried to sell their herring to Low Germanic people. On level of grammar there are big differences (in declination) that are easy to recognize, but wortschatz
is very similar.

Not quite sure if you are serious, but since there are no smileys:

They are far from pidgin languages. Only 30-35% of the vocabulary is of German origin. Even in Danish the Nordic words are the majority and this number is slightly higher in Swedish and Norwegian. So heavily influenced by Low German in the late middle ages, but thats it. English has lots of French words without being a French pidgin.

English is very much a French - Anglosaxon(-and some Norse) pidgin creole, actually. With a lot of the typical grammatical features.

The basis of English is an Anglo-Saxon-Norse mix with (mainly) French loan words for more "advanced" concepts.
This is in many ways similar to the Scandinavian languages where Low German played the role of French.
This doesnt make any of those languages "pidgin" since the majority of the vocabulary is "home grown".
But the Scandinavian languages are less influenced by other languages than English, so it makes even less sense to call them pidgin or creole.