[4] Despite them being the largest self-identified ancestral origin in the United States,[5] demographers still regard the number of English Americans as an undercount.

[10] Scotch-Irish Americans are for the most part descendants of Lowland Scots and Northern English (specifically County Durham, Cumberland, Northumberland and Yorkshire) settlers who migrated to Ireland during the Plantation of Ulster in the 17th century.

Additionally, African Americans tend to have a significant degree of English and Lowland Scots ancestry tracing back to the Colonial period, typically ranging between 17 and 29%.

There is debate over the accuracy between the studies with individual scholars and the Federal Government using different techniques and conclusion for the ethnic composition.

[38] CPG estimated that, of all European Americans in the Continental United States as of 1790, 82.1% were English, followed by 7.0% Scotch, 5.6% German, 2.5% Dutch, 1.9% Irish, and 0.6% French.

[30] The 1909 Century of Population Growth report came under intense scrutiny in the 1920s; its methodology was subject to criticism over fundamental flaws that cast doubt on the accuracy of its conclusions.

"[31] Among the criticisms of A Century of Population Growth: At the time of the first census in 1790, English was the majority ancestry in all U.S. states, ranging from a high of 96.2% in Connecticut to a low of 58.0% in New Jersey.

[45] Using the first model above, in 1900, an estimated 28,375,000 or 37.8% of the population of the United States was wholly or partly of English ancestry from colonial roots.

With the permission of James I, three ships (the Susan Constant, The Discovery, and The God Speed) sailed from England and landed at Cape Henry in April, under the captainship of Christopher Newport,[12] who had been hired by the London Company to lead expeditions to what is now America.

Fleeing religious persecution in the East Midlands in England, they first went to Holland, but feared losing their English identity.

In September 1620, 102 passengers set sail aboard the Mayflower, eventually settling at Plymouth Colony in November.

[66] England also took control over the Dutch colony of New Netherland (including the New Amsterdam settlement), renaming it the Province of New York in 1664.

[72] A number of English settlers moved to the United States from Australia in the 1850s (then a British political territory), when the California Gold Rush boomed; these included the so-called "Sydney Ducks" (see Australian Americans).

[78] The building of America's transcontinental railroads, the settlement of the great plains, and industrialization attracted skilled and professional emigrants from England.

[81] The depression of 1893 sharply decreased English emigration to the United States, and it stayed low for much of the twentieth century.

This decline reversed itself in the decade of World War II when over 100,000 English (18 percent of all European immigrants) came from England.

The American resentment against the policies of the British government[83] was rarely transferred to English settlers who came to America in the first decades of the nineteenth century.

[84][85] In 2011, Lucy Tobin of The Guardian wrote that, as of that year, it was not common to see English cultural heritage expression nor events in the United States.

Northeastern Republican leaders such as Leverett Saltonstall of Massachusetts, Prescott Bush of Connecticut and especially Nelson Rockefeller of New York exemplified the pro-business liberal Republicanism of their social stratum, espousing internationalist views on foreign policy, supporting social programs, and holding liberal views on issues like racial integration.

A famous confrontation was the 1952 Senate election in Massachusetts where John F. Kennedy, a Catholic of Irish descent, defeated WASP Henry Cabot Lodge Jr.

[90] Goldwater himself had solid WASP credentials through his mother, of a prominent old Yankee family, but was instead mistakenly seen as part of the Jewish community (which he had never associated with).

journalist Nina Strochlic in 2012 pointed to eleven WASP top politicians—typically scions of upper class English families.

Such items include all out ("entirely"), cattail ("bullrush"), crib ("child's bed"), daddy long legs ("cranefly"), homecoming ("return"), rumpus ("tumult"), which are recorded in Northern and Midland English dialects as late as the 19th century.

[109] A school of higher education for both Native American young men and the sons of the colonists was one of the earliest goals of the leaders of the Colony of Virginia.

The College of William & Mary was founded on February 8, 1693, under a royal charter (legally, letters patent) to "make, found and establish a certain Place of Universal Study, a perpetual College of Divinity, Philosophy, Languages, and other good arts and sciences...to be supported and maintained, in all time coming.

However president Thomas Clap (1740–1766) strengthened the curriculum in the natural sciences and made Yale a stronghold of revivalist New Light theology.

English ballads, jigs, and hornpipes had a large influence on American folk music, eventually contributing to the formation of such genres as old time, country, bluegrass, and to a lesser extent, blues as well.

The presidents who have lacked recent English ancestry are Martin Van Buren, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, and Donald Trump.

[210] Thomas Jefferson, James Madison[211] John Quincy Adams,[210] Andrew Jackson,[212][213] William Henry Harrison,[214] John Tyler,[215] Zachary Taylor, Millard Fillmore,[216] Franklin Pierce,[217] Abraham Lincoln,[218][219] Andrew Johnson,[220] Ulysses S. Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes,[221] James A. Garfield,[222] Chester A. Arthur, Grover Cleveland, Benjamin Harrison, William McKinley.

Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft,[223][224] Warren G. Harding,[225] Calvin Coolidge,[226] Herbert Hoover, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman,[227][228] Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter,[229] Ronald Reagan,[230] George H. W. Bush,[231][232] Bill Clinton.