British 36,564,465 Americans (2000) estimated up to 35% of US population
British Americans are Americans whose ancestry stems, either wholly or in part, from the United Kingdom. The term is seldom used by people to refer to themselves (less than 1% chose it in the 2000 census), and is used primarily as a demographic or historical research tool. Terms such as White American or European American or simply American are more commonly used. Since "Britons" are comprised of multiple ethnic groups (the UK is noted for having a diverse society), a British American can have heritage of a number of nations and ethnic backgrounds.
British Americans have English, Scottish, Scots-Irish (Ulster-Scots), and/or Welsh family heritages, or came from Canada where their ancestors were of British descent. Catholic Irish-Americans are not usually categorized as having British ancestry. They do not usually consider themselves as being British Americans. Immigrants from Canada of British ancestry call themselves Canadian Americans. Similarly, most British Americans tend to differentiate to being English, Scottish or Welsh or ethnic minorities (eg. Pakistani Scottish) from the individual constituent countries and do not identify with the UK as a whole, therefore tending not to refer to themselves as British American (see English American, Scottish American, Welsh American, or Scots-Irish American). Many immigrants to the US from the UK, such as Indians, Chinese or Afro-Caribbean, may identify with Indian American, Chinese American or African American ancestry as opposed to British American.

Number of British Americans
The Twenty-Second United States Census, 2000, 36.4 million Americans reported British ancestry.
Most of the population who stated their ancestry as "American" are said to be of old colonial British stock.

American 20,625,093 (7.3%) 2000 U.S Census
The Twenty-first United States Census, 1990.

1990 U.S Census
The Twentieth United States Census, 1980, 61.3 million (61,311,449) Americans reported British ancestry. The total U.S population in 1980 was 226,545,805 and was the first census-form that asked peoples ancestry.
These include: In 1980, the total census reported that British ancestry was (32.56%) of the total U.S population.
Triple ancestry response:English-Irish-Scotch: 897,316 There are no concrete figures for the Scots-Irish and some group responses were undercounted, but in 1980, 29,828,349 people claimed Irish and another ethnic ancestry... Over half of the Irish today in the United States are Protestants.[1]
These figures make British Americans the largest "ethnic" groups in the U.S. and would have natuarally increased in population with more people of British origin than in 1980. When counted collectively (the Census Bureau does give the choice to count them collectively as one ancestry, and also count them in a separate ethnic group, that is English, Scottish, Welsh or Scots-Irish). In In 2000, Germans and Irish are the largest self-reported ethnic groups in the nation.

Scots-Irish 1980 U.S Census

See also

References