Aida, The MaxKade Institute is asking for feedback. Why don't you send the letter below to them? Karen In a message dated 4/19/2006 9:57:20 AM Mountain Standard Time, akibb1@verizon.net writes: My opinion is that the percentage of Germans in America is even greater than the given percentage here, because they classify - to this day - immigrants' by origin of their country. I am sure that Austrian-Hungarians were not counted as "Germans." The defining "German" label is strictly for people born within Germany itself. Bohemians immigrating after 1919 are counted as Czechs (like 3 German people of our family). Purely German relatives of mine (who attended German schools in their country of origin and whose home language and culture was German) arrived in America as "Hungarians", etc. and counted as such. There is a huge group of "Ukrainians," Yugoslavians", "Slovaks", "Poles" and "Russians".... who, had they been able to sign in with their ethnicity, in other words the language they spoke at home and the culture they followed, we would see that the percentage given here would be much larger. We can see it in our own genealogical research that we find our German ancestors in "other countries" besides Germany. When they arrived on these shores, they were not counted as Germans but as citizens of a "politically bordered" country (which was in fact their home of origin) rather than by their actual ethnicity. Aida