Anyway, nearly every White American* has at least some English ancestry: the exceptions would be from certain groups that retained the status of ethnic groups for longer and have not assimilated in full or were very late to do so. Substantial proportions in the Appalachians and wherever there was significant Appalachian diaspora later will also have Welsh ancestry: now there's your ultimate forgotten ancestral grouping, later migration to Scranton, PA and some Mormons notwithstanding.
*And, if we're being honest, most Black Americans, though rather more distantly. It is the way it is.
This is correct. I was of the impression that I might be a rare case who has zero English ancestry but, as it turns out, I have a trace from the 18th Century, and I think if that's true for me (seemingly homogenous Catholic ancestry), it's likely going to be true for literally anyone with an ancestor living in the US in the mid-19th Century or before, excepting Pietists or Navajo or Lakota or Jews (true special case due to endogamy) or perhaps New Mexican Hispanics. I suspect just about anyone else has trace amounts of English ancestry and this will include the vast majority of American Indians and virtually all Blacks descendants of slaves who were living in the US. If
I have trace English ancestry, anyone should have it and those who suspect otherwise haven't looked or cannot look etc.
Of course, for the vast majority of people with a white parent, English ancestry goes well beyond trace, I'm just a weird edge-case in the year 2022 due to special factors involving heritage from an ethnic enclave.
