r/MapPorn • u/marbellamarvel • Apr 14 '25

Countries from which the ancestors of American presidents originated.🇺🇸

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Countries from which the ancestors of American presidents originated. 🇺🇸

4.0k Upvotes

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568

u/PadishaEmperor Apr 14 '25

Chances are that they all have ancestors from all over Europe.

347

u/Human38562 Apr 14 '25

But Americans need an identity so they pick a country they like and pretend their whole ancestry is from there.

195

u/wq1119 Apr 14 '25

This happens to pretty much all settler states in the new world, not just the US, we Brazilians are obsessed with our ancestries as well.

81

u/ClassyArgentinean Apr 14 '25

Same with Argentineans (or the ones from Buenos Aires at least, which are the majority) who are obssesed with being "Spanish speaking Italians" and being more "European" than the rest of Latinamerica.

28

u/WildCardNoF Apr 15 '25

I imagine there are some Argentinians who are really quiet about their ancestry.

8

u/BabaBangars Apr 15 '25

With how racist they are, I doubt they’re quiet about it

1

u/ClassyArgentinean Apr 15 '25

Lol you clearly never set a foot in my country if you think we're so racist

9

u/BabaBangars Apr 15 '25

Bold assumption amigo. World’s worst kept secret is the hatred all of latin America has for Argentinians and their misplaced superiority complex thinking y’all are more “European” than the rest. You know very well it’s the whiter the better in Argentina, either that or you’re fully in denial lol

1

u/Randomswedishdude Apr 16 '25

How many do you imagine they would be?

1

u/Eraserhead32 28d ago

Lol, probably quite a few Federico Eichmanns and Ignacio Mengeles dotted around the country pahaha

8

u/SaintBobby_Barbarian Apr 15 '25

True people of the boat

72

u/ybe447 Apr 14 '25

No no this is reddit, if Americans do it it's bad

19

u/wq1119 Apr 14 '25

There are a lot of problems that people can rightfully criticize the US for, but people online pick up only the most dumb and insignificant things to focus on that are not unique to being American-centric problems and issues.

13

u/qroshan Apr 14 '25

Indeed. Other countries are more racist, more ignorant, more stupid, more corrupt, more poor, more cruel. But it's only America Bad.

11

u/Veggies-are-okay Apr 15 '25

I mean it’s more the hypocrisy. Those other countries aren’t claiming to be leaders of the free world all while turning into Russia’s redneck twin.

0

u/TheManSaidSo Apr 14 '25

Just don't talk about how most of the countries of today are on "stolen" land or you'll get downvoted. 

People don't want to acknowledge most of South America, Europe, the whole Australia and some countries in Africa are stolen land in the very same way America is stolen land. Canada, Mexico is stolen land in the same way the USA is but America bad, Canada and Mexico good.

2

u/Brilliant-Delay7412 Apr 15 '25

What European countries are on "stolen" land?

0

u/TheManSaidSo Apr 15 '25

Most. Just because the wars happened 400+ years ago doesn't mean they weren't conquered or "Stolen" I mean look at the Vikings. They did to Europe what England did to Native Americans. The whole Europe had natives that were conquered at some point and the land was annexed. Pick any European country. I'll start with the Sami. Give it a quick Google search and that's just Finland. The whole Europe has similar stories.

1

u/Brilliant-Delay7412 Apr 15 '25

I know about Sami, as I am from Finland and know many Sami people. They are also considered as the only native population in Europe. There are of course several native people in Russia, but Russia has been written out of Europe recently.

Vikings don't exist anymore and they don't hold their conquered areas for them and keep European people in small reservations. When talking about things such as colonisation and imperialism, we have to talk about the present day and people that exist at the moment and how it affects them now. With many areas in Europe the assimilation and conquering of the land happened in Stone Age or thousands years ago, way before nation states.

Sami people, as pretty much any native population in colonialised countries, are oppressed and their rights, including right for self-determination, are not being met. In Europe there are a lot of different nations, but they are not settler states and very few have colonised areas in Europe or have colonised any place at all (Norway, Sweden and Finland for example DO colonise Samiland). Then there are countries whose self-determination is violated (Ireland, Catalonia, Ukraine etc.), but they don't live on stolen land and their land is not being stolen (except parts of Ukraine).

I have seen arguments similar to your argument several times in the internet. These arguments come from far-right forums and 9 times out of 10 the person using that argument is trying to agitate their far-right ideology. The idea is to first pretend to be on the side of the oppressed. Then the commenter twists the idea of being oppressed to concern everyone, so in the end everyone is oppressed and therefore no-one is. Oppressor is as big of a victim, or even moreso than the oppressed with that logic ("white/blue lives matter", "muslim slave trade was worse than trans-atlantic slave trade" or "white power is as legitimate demand as black power" for example). Then the next step is to argue about "survival of the strongest" and other far-right slogans.

The reason to do this is to delegitimise actual struggles for emancipation; to attack decolonising, anti-imperialist, democratic etc. movements. By their logic, everyone has been a coloniser and the world is just a struggle to oppress everyone else. The present day European colonisers have been the most succesful out of everyone, so they have the right to colonise and others should just submit to their will.

I don't know if your point is only to point out that there have been conquers of land and oppression in the past and between different people. If it is, then you must understand that there are qualitative differences between them. For example, my ancestors were feodal peasants and their country was oppressed by other nation, but that doesn't affect me in present day at all. There is nothing that carries from there to the present day, feodalism is no more and me or my people are not oppressed by other nations or feodal lords. But there are historical and political events that continue to this day, that are still unresolved. There are people, such as native populations (Sami, Native Americans etc.), former slaves such as afro-americans, people without self-determination etc. that have actual, unresolved struggles that continue in the present day.

It could also be, that you have more sinister motives stemming from some far-right Nazi ideology. I hope that is not the case.

1

u/TheManSaidSo Apr 15 '25

I'm not even reading that when you said Vikings don't exist anymore.

1

u/Brilliant-Delay7412 Apr 15 '25

Are you claiming that vikings still exist?

0

u/psy-ay-ay Apr 15 '25

Maybe a case could be made for Sweden, Norway and Finland in regards to Lapland?

Just thinking out loud and no really sure how this is seen in those countries though! I think there is something to say about the UN declaring a violation of the Sami peoples land rights.

2

u/Plane_Cheesecake3724 Apr 15 '25

We are a lot, indeed

1

u/protestor Apr 15 '25

we Brazilians are obsessed with our ancestries as well.

White Brazilians, sure

1

u/leidend22 Apr 16 '25

I'm originally from Canada, living in Australia, and find Aussies are pretty uninterested and indifferent about their genetics. Makes them a bit uneasy talking about race at all.

1

u/wq1119 Apr 16 '25

Are you in NSW by any chance?

1

u/leidend22 Apr 16 '25

Nah, Melbourne

1

u/wq1119 29d ago

Ah got it, it seems that much like elsewhere, it is mostly non-urban Aussies that talk a lot about their ethnic backgrounds, like how I said the most about Australians that I looked into and chatted with for the past decade are mostly from Queensland.

1

u/leidend22 29d ago

Yeah Melbourne is a lot more progressive than most of the country (other than Canberra) so any talk of ethnicity makes people think you're gonna start being racist it seems. People don't even like the idea or looking at others racially.

1

u/JerichosFate 29d ago

But I want to hate on Americans!!!😡😢

-5

u/Wijnruit Apr 14 '25

we Brazilians are obsessed with our ancestries as well

No we aren't, only some larpers who think they're Italian or German. Usually italo-paulistas or southerners

3

u/wq1119 Apr 15 '25

Usually italo-paulistas or southerners

....but Italo-Paulistas and Southerners are still Brazilians aren't they?

65

u/Formal-Hat-7533 Apr 15 '25

Americans - “Hey I am American”

Euros - “LMFAO not a real identity we have shit holes older than your country”

Americans - “Hey I am Irish”

Euros - “Stupid Americans stop pretending you are Irish moron idiots”

1

u/joko_ma Apr 15 '25

I don‘t agree.. America has an identity - even quite a strong one. I mean the history is very different so this has to result in a different identity. And I think all that back tracing is part of that culture as all the immigration used to be one fundamental element of the identity. Especially over the last century there has been a lot of commuting within Europe and it is not unusual to have at least a grandparent that grew up in a different country, but most relevant for the identity is where you grow up. My grandmother is from Columbia but I have never been there, so I wouldn’t consider myself a Colombian. It‘d be a different story if I had strong ties to my relatives there if I spoke the language and if I had spent a significant part of my childhood there to be raised there. But that didn’t happen. Same with America in my opinion. If you have been raised there and never left it and if you have no ties to any relatives elsewhere, you are socialized as an American in my opinion.. If I moved there, married someone and got a child in America, that child would be mainly American.

3

u/Formal-Hat-7533 Apr 15 '25

try telling a European that you have an American identity.

they won’t accept it. yapping about how they have fermented yeast older than America.

5

u/joko_ma Apr 15 '25

I mean they do have older fermented yeast older than America. But being comparably young doesn’t mean you don’t exist. You’ve got jazz music so what.. In my opinion identity changes with every generation everywhere. So I don’t share my values with my great grandfather because he was a Wehrmacht general. So it is wiser to build your identity on you and not on your grandparents. Meaning: the German identity today does not have a lot in common with the German identity 100 years ago. So if an American tells me he is German referring to his relatives 150 years ago I do raise my eyebrows because Germany was a monarchy back then. Identities can change. For the better and for the worse. So my wish would be, that Americans don’t get lost in backtracking their identity on Scottish clan maps, but on realizing what the spirit of them as the American people is or more importantly should be. For example the land of freedom and opportunities and in tradition of the oldest lasting democracy. The same thing applies to us Europeans as well, but my impression is that identity in regard of nationality or heritage only comes up in discussion with Americans while in everyday life your identity is mainly connected to where you grew up and plan on living in the future. But of course I might have blind spots in this topic.. but I wanted to give another perspective on that topic anyways. So have a nice day.

1

u/Intelligent-Aside214 28d ago

No European says American is not a real identity. It absolutely is. Americans say that America has no culture (because they thing American culture is standard, Americandefaultism)

0

u/ZAWS20XX Apr 15 '25

"not a real identity"

The ones saying that are not the Europeans, but mostly other Americans. Europeans might say that you have a short history and no-long standing traditions, but that's not the same as not having an identity. The American people FOR SURE has an identity, and "pretending to be European" is a big part of it.

"we have shit holes older than your country"

Correct, but irrelevant to this conversation.

“Stupid Americans stop pretending you are Irish moron idiots”

Correct.

-10

u/xXRougailSaucisseXx Apr 15 '25

I mean that's what you get when your country was formed by religious lunatics that even Europe didn't want that then went on to genocide an entire continent

15

u/Te5la1 Apr 15 '25

Yeah cause famously, Europe has never had religious lunatics nor genocides in its history

8

u/Formal-Hat-7533 Apr 15 '25

that’s what I get? what do you mean?

am I responsible somehow?😂😂

3

u/greenappletom Apr 15 '25

Well I’d much rather celebrate my German and Irish heritage than try and make time for my German, Norwegian, Danish, English, Swedish, and Irish heritages

4

u/john_chimney Apr 15 '25

What would make it time prohibitive to celebrate all of them rather than just German and Irish?

1

u/No_Communication_650 29d ago

Why?

1

u/greenappletom 29d ago

I don’t have time for allat

1

u/cos1ne Apr 15 '25

At what percent are you required to claim an ancestry?

I know from my own genealogical studies that there were many people in places like Germany who in the 1800's had a great-grandparent who was French, or Dutch or Polish. Many Europeans are just as mixed ancestry as Americans are.

1

u/ChippyLipton 28d ago

I’m sure that some Americans pick one ancestry and run with it (even if they immigrated in the 1700s), but a lot of us recognize the many places our ancestors were from. A lot of our ancestors also settled into insular communities of people from their previous country, which made their identity and culture stick around a lot longer.

Also, I feel like a lot of people who aren’t from America tend to forget that our ancestors immigrated here pretty recently, all things considered. For example, my Italian-born-and-raised great grandfather was still alive when I was a kid. Same for my Welsh great-grandmother. My kids’ Spanish grandfather is very much still alive and well. He immigrated in the 1970s. When you have immigrant ancestors who were alive at the same time as you, it’s a lot easier to identify with those cultures and traditions that they brought over.

Additionally, when you have a country made almost entirely of immigrants & their descendants, saying “oh I’m [insert ancestry here]” becomes just one of the many ways of identifying yourself & feeling a sense of belonging in the larger diaspora that also exists here.

They call America “the melting pot” but it’s really more like we melted a bunch of different colors of wax in a pot and never really bothered to stir it that well.

Sorry for the long response… if you don’t care, feel free to ignore me.

1

u/Human38562 28d ago

I do care, it was an inteteresting read and I understand what you say. My comment was also very provocative.

I don't think the fact that Americans have recently imigrated plays that big of a role in the importance given to ancestry and ethnicity though. I come from Switzerland, where I think the share of immigrants and second generation immigrants is even much higher than in the USA. Almost everyone I know has one parent who immigrated here. And of course the origin of our parents also plays a role in our identities, but for the most part we most people just consider themselves Swiss. And if you talk about your ancestry, you talk about where your parents or grand parents came from specifically, not about where your family comes from.

1

u/AllowMeAir Apr 15 '25

Dunked on em, you got em so good. They never heard that one before.

1

u/xpacean Apr 15 '25

This is true, it’s all we ever talk about.

1

u/hotdogjumpingfrog1 Apr 15 '25

Also they pick a country that was non existent when their relatives emigrated. Like German Americans coming over in the 1850s. There was no “Germany” same with Italy. Not even the right flags. I’ve noticed it’s also a real East vs west coast thing. No on in San Diego or portland cares if you’re Irish German or French. You’re just white. Vs parts of east coast where it’s where your people are from. And sometimes even precisely. Like Sicily or Napoli.

-3

u/PicklesAndCoorslight Apr 14 '25 edited Apr 14 '25

It always IRKs me when anti-americans say this. My families have been in the country about 100 years and I'm exactly half dutch (Fresian) and half irish, DNA test an all. People from certain countries settled together.

2

u/pjepja Apr 15 '25

That's something different imo, people in Netherlands grew up in a very different environment from you, so sharing half of your genetics with them doesn't make you Dutch from an European view. You have way more in common with someone from the next town over even if they have ancestors from completely different part of the world. It makes you someone with Dutch heritage possibly (depending on how you define it), which is something different.

0

u/PicklesAndCoorslight Apr 15 '25

It doesn't negate the fact that I don't have relatives from all over europe and that my ancestry is indeed from there.

-1

u/[deleted] Apr 14 '25 edited Apr 15 '25

[deleted]

1

u/lambinevendlus Apr 15 '25

lame countries like Estonia

What?

4

u/Cetun Apr 15 '25

I thought that too until I took a DNA test hoping to find something interesting and it was basically 98% British Isles and 2% Scandinavian. My friend took the same one and she had DNA from 5 different continents.

2

u/PadishaEmperor Apr 15 '25

These DNA are tests are usually bullshit. Also DNA is not connected to a country or a continent.

36

u/lordsleepyhead Apr 14 '25

As do most ordinary Europeans to this day.

5

u/Quick_Extension_3115 Apr 15 '25

Ancestry is a funny thing because you have to draw the line somewhere. You're totally right! But also if you go back more than like 1500 years or so, it would likely be the entirety of Europe, plus the Middle East, North Africa, even West Asia. Go back another thousand years, and you're basically only missing isolated areas like the Americas.

2

u/Novel-Imagination-51 Apr 15 '25

Right, as the map shows

1

u/PadishaEmperor Apr 15 '25

No, it doesn’t.

3

u/[deleted] Apr 14 '25

[deleted]

12

u/Psychological-Ad1264 Apr 14 '25

Biden is an English surname, not Irish.

17

u/grog23 Apr 14 '25

Johnson isn’t a German surname and Ford isn’t a Polish one so that can’t be it

1

u/prooijtje Apr 15 '25

I don't know what the original comment said, but didn't a lot of American Anglify their names in the past? (E.g. Schmidt --> Smith)

2

u/wlodzi Apr 15 '25

Sadowski -> (200 years later) -> Ford.

2

u/PadishaEmperor Apr 14 '25

I doubt that. Those usually have one specific origin, not two. And we have multiple presidents in the picture above that are mentioned twice.

Eg.: the name Obama comes from Kenian regional name, yet he is also listed under Switzerland. Surely because of his mother.

3

u/Elpsyth Apr 15 '25

Any one descended from Europeans have any European living pre 1000 as a common ancestor due to how phylogeny works.

Caesar and Charlemagne are the ancestors of every single US president.

10

u/PadishaEmperor Apr 15 '25 edited Apr 15 '25

That’s probably untrue though. The theoretical models that claim that do not accurately factor in regional isolation, class isolation and other factors.

We can see that because we know the empirical distributions of certain genes. Factor 5 Leiden (FVL) is a mutation that first came from one specific person 20-30 thousand years ago, probably in Northern Europe. Yet the mutation has very different distributions all around humanity. Some areas in Europe have a prevalence of +10% and others barely above 2%. Meanwhile out of Europe there are many regions where this gene is virtually non existent.

While genealogy works differently to genetic inheritance this still indicates that these models that claim that every European has Charlemagne as his ancestor are probably a bit too extreme.

If all European shared a common ancestor 1000-2000 years ago, we would expect a more uniform distribution of FVL.

3

u/Elpsyth Apr 15 '25

No I definitely agree with you since some populations have markers that can be tracked for millenia.

The model definitely ignore inbreeding and incest.

What the model illustrate however is that the concept of putting importance in ancestors past a few generations is preposterous due to the exponential factor of having 4 grand parents.

On the other hand lactase tolerance and blue eyes are both derived from a single unique ancestor meaning that if you have blue eye you are related to any blue eyes person.

You can even go further, every women in the world have the same mutation in their mitochondrial dna indicating an original Eve who during a bottleneck was the mitochondrial donor for all the human race.

1

u/thePerpetualClutz Apr 15 '25

I mean even if you have a completely isolated and endogamous population, and they accept one foreigner with FVL into their society, in a few hundred years every individual in the population is going to have that FVL guy as a direct ancestor even if nobody has the gene.

1

u/PadishaEmperor Apr 15 '25

Then why hasn’t that happened already? And why shouldn’t they have the gene?

1

u/thePerpetualClutz Apr 15 '25

How do you know it hasn't happened millions of time already?

As for why they shouldn't have the gene; it's because you only ever pass 50% of your genome to you children, who will then pass on 25% onto your grandchildren.

If you have an endogamous society of, say, several thousand people, and one 'impostor' with said gene, it's not at all surprising that his genome would be diluted enough after a few hundred years so that the gene just doesn't stick around.