The south was settled mainly by Welsh and Scots/Irish. Some historians have even speculated as that being the reason for so much conflict between the north and the south.
Edwards, Davies/Davis, Jones, Hughes, Griffiths, Richards, Harris, Lewis and Thomas are all Welsh surnames.
The problem with tracking the number of people in the U.S with Welsh ancestory is because (with the obvious exception of the Anthracite Region in Pennsylvania where a lot of miners settled in the late C19th) most have been in the U.S so long that they've forgotten where their families came from originally.
Most of the people who put "United States" on the census thingy (almost all people putting that on the form are from the Deep South or Appalachia) probably have Welsh or Northern English ancestory.
Is Asby a common surname in England? I'm not sure if it comes from there [after the town (?) of Great Asby] or if it comes from Sweden (from the many towns called Asby there).
Also, I didn't read all of the stats in that survey, but I use many different pronunciations of words interchangably. When I talk to someone for a few minutes my accent gravitates toward theirs. This sounds especially funny when I'm talking with a few different people with accents. (example: Talking with a relative from Missouri and someone with a Louisiana French accent at the same time I realised that I was sounding really funny.)
