From multiple sources and books it claims that German is the highest ancestry in the US. It always seems to claim a landslide over British Isles ancestry. What I don't understand is if this were true wouldn't there be far more white people in America with German last names; descendants of slaves have German last names; official language be German- I mean since the census claims German as the highest ancestry in the USA and all. I am aware that a ton of Germans migrated to the US over the centuries, but I have a a hard time believing that there are more German descents in the US than British Isles. Please clear this up if you have noticed also. Thank you. Well, I grew up in rural southern Michigan and German surnames were by far the most common and still are. The entire midwest is predominantly German, Pennsylvania is also majority German, particularly the western half of the state which is more culturally similar to the Midwest. German and Irish are the two biggest ancestries in America. The Black slave descendants don't have German surnames because they usually adopted the names of their masters when they were freed, and most of the slave owners were British, or in the case of Louisiana- French. Plus, the German population in the south was not nearly as significant as in the midwest or areas of the east coast and down in Texas where there is alot of German ancestry as well. About German being the official language of the US, well it almost was, I think we were only a few votes away from speaking German right now instead of English, the official language was nearly German which is kind of weird because at that time there weren't very many Germans in America at all, the majority of them immigrated later on.    Something from the wikipedia...   German was a widely spoken language in some of the colonies, especially Pennsylvania, where a number of German-speaking religious minorities settled to escape persecution in Europe. Dutch, Swedish, and Scottish Gaelic all became less common than German after the American Revolution. Another wave of settlement occurred when Germans fleeing the failure of 19th Century German revolutions emigrated to the United States. Large numbers of Germans settled throughout the U.S., especially in the cities. Neighborhoods in many cities were German-speaking. German farmers took up farming around the country, including the Texas Hill Country, at this time.  German was widely spoken until the United States entered World War I . Numerous local German language newspapers and periodicals existed.     In the early twentieth century, German was the most widely studied foreign language in the United States,  and prior to World War I, more than 6% of American school-children received their primary education exclusively in German , though some of these Germans came from areas outside of Germany proper. Currently, more than 47 million Americans claim German ancestry, the largest self-described ethnic group in the U.S., and 10% of them speak or could speak the language. The Amish speak a dialect of German known as Pennsylvania Dutch.  In addition to Pennsylvania, German was widely spoken in the Midwest until the late 1950s . One reason for this decline of German language was the perception during both World Wars that speaking the language of the enemy was unpatriotic;    Well, according to this it says the thing about German almost being the official language of the US is a myth. But I always thought it was true, hm....    The Muhlenberg legend is a popular urban legend in the United States and Germany. According to the legend because of Frederick Muhlenberg, German didn't become the official language of the United States. At the heart of this legend is a vote in the United States House of Representatives from 1794, where a group of German immigrants asked for the translation of some laws into German. This petition was rejected by a 42-41 vote and Muhlenberg was later quoted as having said the faster the Germans become Americans, the better it will be. The United States has no statutory official language; English has been used as a de facto basis, owing to its status as the country's predominant language.