re: Why do so many southern areas refer to themselves as americans on ancestry surveys?

quote:

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I wonder why you're offended people identify with a country that's existed since 1776 but you have no problem that far more people identify as German when that country has only existed since 1871.



(For those who don't know shite about history, before the founding of The German Empire in January 1871, the people who lived in what we now consider "Germany" were far more likely to identify with whatever area (like Barvaria, Saxony, Prussia, etc) they lived in than as "German". So in other words, people have been calling themselves "American" almost 100 years longer than they've been calling themselves Germans.)

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The people of that region have been called Germans since the Middle Ages and the time of the Holy Roman Empire. It's no different than someone calling themselves a Louisianan and an American.