Why is German the largest self-reported ancestry in the United States and not English if the US was a British colony?

Question

Why isn’t it English by far?

In: Other

Answer 1

1. For most of the time US was a British colony in the 18th Century, Britain was in a royal union with Hanover in Germany so many rich landowners and aristocrats had German as well as British ancestry.

2. There was a large wave of migration to the US from Germany in the middle of the 19th Century as a result of the failed liberal revolutionary movements in Germany and upheaval caused by the conquest and unification of Germany by Prussia.