Though they were a blend of various races, a cosmopolitan
admixture of ethnic strains, they were not more varied than the
original admixture of blood now called English.
We may, then, properly begin our survey of the racial elements in the
United States by a brief scrutiny of this American stock, the parent
stem of the American people, the great trunk, whose roots have
penetrated deep into the human experience of the past and whose
branches have pushed upward and outward until they spread over a whole
continent.
The first census of the United States was taken in 1790. More than a
hundred years later, in 1909, the Census Bureau published _A Century
of Population Growth_ in which an attempt was made to ascertain the
nationality of those who comprised the population at the taking of the
first census. In that census no questions of nativity were asked. This
omission is in itself significant of the homogeneity of the population
at that time. The only available data, therefore, upon which such a
calculation could be made were the surnames of the heads of families
preserved in the schedules. A careful analysis of the list disclosed a
surprisingly large number of names ostensibly English or British.
Fashions in names have changed since then, and many that were so
curious, simple, or fantastically compounded as to be later deemed
undignified have undergone change or disappeared.
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