If my family has been in the usa since the 1700s does that mean we're British?

Question

I've traced my family back to the late 1700s and they were in Arkansas at that time. Thats as far back as it goes. Does that pretty much mean my family is British? Or what other white people groups were living in the us at that time? French possibly?

Answer 1

Not by a long shot:



French Colonization

The French colonization of the Americas began in the 16th century, and continued in the following centuries as France established a colonial empire in the Western Hemisphere...the French established forts and settlements that would become such cities as Quebec and Montreal in Canada; Detroit, Green Bay, St. Louis, Mobile, Biloxi, Baton Rouge and New Orleans in the United States; and Port-au-Prince and Cap-Haïtien in Haiti. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_colonization_of_the_Americas



Scottish Colonization

On 23 November 1683, Charles II granted a charter for the colony of New Jersey to 24 proprietors, 12 of whom were Scots. The colony was to be split between an English settlement in West Jersey and a Scottish settlement in East Jersey. The driving force among the Scots was Robert Barclay of Urie,[3] a prominent Quaker and the first Governor of East Jersey.



Although the Quakers were an important force, making up all of the proprietors of East Jersey, the settlement was marketed as a national, rather than a religious, endeavour, partially due to persecution of the Quakers in the 1660s and 1670s.



During the 1680s, around 700 Scots emigrated to East Jersey, mostly from Aberdeen and Montrose, and around 50% of those travelled as indentured servants. From 1685, there was further emigration, albeit unsought by the emigrants, with the deportation of captured Covenanters. They were originally to have been placed in indented servitude on arrival; however, they were declared by the courts to be free men, as they had not voluntarily indented. In the 1690s, the pace of Scottish immigration slowed, due to opposition by William III of England and II of Scotland to those proprietors who supported James II; it did not pick up again till the 1720s. The initial immigrants to East Jersey were Quakers, Episcopalians and Presbyterians; by the 1730s, Presbyterianism had become the dominant religion.



Until 1697, every Governor of East Jersey was Scottish, and Scots maintained great influence in politics and business even after 1702, when East Jersey and West Jersey were merged to become a Royal Colony.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_colonization_of_the_Americas



Spanish Colonization

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_colonization_of_the_Americas



Swedish Colonization

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_colonization_of_the_Americas



To read more see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_colonization_of_the_Americas

Answer 2

Well if you do not know what British means I really feel sorry for you. If you are basing it on what a free market means and the availability of various goods from different countries you are deluded and very shallow. I don't know any 'Brits' who a suspicious of everything foreign. In Europe some banks chain the pen to the desk and I never thought that how a company lays out a shop means a way to describe the population. I guess you don't travel much or attended English lessons if your spelling is anything to go by..... Why not use the check spelling tool?

Answer 3

French and Spanish were the first Europeans to settle in Arkansas in the late 1600's. Scots, Canadians (mostly French-Canadian), Brits, and Germans settled there in the 1700's. And the point of origin doesn't necessarily mean that's the immigrants' ethnicity. It's entirely possible that someone from Italy moved to England, then came to Arkansas with the Brits, for example. That individual would be Italian, but generalized history would count them among "Brits".



This is of course assuming that you know for certain that your ancestors were not Native or African, who were also in Arkansas in that time frame. Just because you have light skin doesn't necessarily mean you don't have an ancestor that wasn't European.



Without doing the documented research you really can't tell. But the history does help you know that looking for an unknown ancestor in, say, Cambodia probably won't be the best use of time.

Answer 4

No. there were German settlements in Pennsylvania and North Carolina. The so called Pennsylvania Dutch are actually from what is now Germany. Their speech dialect reflect High Deutsch(High German). The religious strife throughout Europe during the 1600s brought many from one of the German states. Germany was not a nation then. In colonial days Germans were called Dutch as that is what Deutsch sounded like to English speaking people.



Also French Huguenots came to Virginia and the Carolinas



New York was originally a Dutch settlement from the Netherlands.



Then territories that originally belong to Spain and France became part of the United States. Texas for instance was ruled by France at times and by Spain. Then it became part of Mexico when Mexico got its independence from Spain. Texas won its independence from Mexico and was an independent republic for 10 years before entering the U.S. under treaty between the U.S. and Texas.



The Louisiana territory was governed by France and sold to the United States in 1803. The earlyf French cdolonials and Accadian (Cajun) populations were already there.



Edit: After ther Revolutionary War, France gave safe haven into the Louisiana Territory for those who supported King George during the American Revolution. People whose origin are in Northern Louisiana are largely redcoats. There are pockets of them in Arkansas and Missouri since that was part of the Louisiana territory. The redcoats were mostly English and Scottish Jacobites. The Jacobites had fought against George I and George II and when George III came to the throne, a lot of the Jacobites decided to get as far away as possible and they left for Virginia and the Carolinas, but once they got there they didn't get along with the Scot Irish.

Since the Scot-Irish were known to be RRRR(Rabid Radicals Ready for Revolution) the Jacobites joined with their old nemesis the crown of Great Britain. So some of your ancestors might have been among the redcoats that entered the Louisiana Territory after the Revolutionary War.

Answer 5

No, it does not. Many groups settled America.



"Arkansas" didn't exist in the 1700s and wasn't American territory until the Louisiana purchase in 1803. Earlier (white) settlers in the area would have likely been French, Spanish, and pioneer types (often, but not always Scots-Irish). As the Indians were cleared, planters from the upper South (and their slaves) flooded in.

Answer 6

If your family has been in the U.S.A. since the 1700s, that would imply that they are Americans.

As to Arkansas history, see: http://littlerock.about.com/cs/generalhistory/a/settlers.htm

So you are talking about being in Arkansas before it was even a territory!

As to which whites were in what is now the U.S. of A. back then, there were first the Spaniards, then the French. Of course, the Brits hung out along the Atlantic Coast at first; don't forget the Netherlanders founded New Holland (now New York).

While searching for my ancestors in Virginia in the late 1700s, I noticed that the various names included Chinese names. (These ancestors of mine were mostly of German extraction, but also Swiss and English).

So, white settlers would have included Spaniards, French, English, Netherlanders, Belgiums, Austrians, Swiss, Germans and just about any others from Western Europe.

To find out what YOUR ancesters were, what countries they were from, you will need to do the research, starting with:

You should start by asking all your living relatives about family history. Then, armed with that information, you can go to your public library and check to see if it has a genealogy department. Most do nowadays; also, don't forget to check at community colleges, universities, etc. Our public library has both www.ancestry.com and www.heritagequest.com free for anyone to use (no library card required).

Another place to check out is any of the Mormon's Family History Centers. They allow people to search for their family history (and, NO, they don't try to convert you).

A third option is one of the following websites:

http://www.searchforancestors.com/...



http://www.censusrecords.net/?o_xid=2739...



www dot usgenweb dot com/



www dot census dot gov/



http://www.rootsweb.com/



www dot ukgenweb dot com/



www dot archives dot gov/



http://www.familysearch.org/



http://www.accessgenealogy.com/...



http://www.cyndislist.com/



www dot geni dot com/



Cyndi's has the most links to genealogy websites, whether ship's passenger lists, ancestors from Africa, ancestors from the Philippines, where ever and whatever.



Of course, you may be successful by googling: "john doe, born 1620, plimouth, massachusetts" as an example.



Good luck and have fun!



Check out this article on five great free genealogy websites:



www dot associatedcontent dot com/article...



Then there is the DNA test; if you decide you want to REALLY know where your ancestors came from opt for the DNA test. Besides all the mistakes that officials commonly make, from 10% to 20% of birth certificates list the father wrong; that is, mama was doing the hanky-panky and someone else was the REAL father. That won't show up on the internet or in books; it WILL show up in DNA.

I used www.familytreedna.com which works with the National Geographics Genotype Program.

Answer 7

Spaniard Hernando de Soto was among the early European explorers to visit the territory in the mid-16th century, but it was a Frenchman, Henri de Tonti, who in 1686 founded the first permanent white settlement—the Arkansas Post. In 1803 the area was acquired by the U.S. as part of the Louisiana Purchase.

Answer 8

Perhaps, however, it's more than likely that you're a Heinz 57 mix. Palatine Germans, French Huguenots, the Scots Irish, and the Scots had all settled on the American seaboard by the time of the American Revolution. Since you can trace your ancestry back to Arkansas, you're most probably a mix of Scots-Irish (Lowland Scots who migrated to Northern Ireland), English, and possibly Welsh, French Protestant, and German ancestries. The Scots-Irish in particular settled in large numbers in Arkansas and Tennessee.



The 2000 US Census lists the following ancestries for Arkansas residents:



American 15.7 % (Usually this means of mixed-European ancestry)



African-American 11.9 %



Irish 9.5 % (Doesn't differentiate between the Roman Catholic native Irish and the Scots-Irish)



German 9.3 %



English 7.9%



P. S. -- You'll have to trace back your ancestry generation by generation to determine your exact ancestry, which will most likely involve more than one ethnicity. However, on the 2010 US Census, unless you definitely know, it would be a safe bet to classify yourself as "American".