Big MA Ancestry Data Thread by Town (Boston, Worcester: Vietnamese, cities)

[Boston_Burbs]

I like that the "American" towns are some of the most Red/Republican towns in MA

[Southshorebound]

Originally Posted by Boston_Burbs

I like that the "American" towns are some of the most Red/Republican towns in MA

Surprising for Native Americans!

[BostonMike7]

Originally Posted by msRB311

That doesnt surprise me about Revere...most of the Italians have died off or moved...Revere seems to be mainly Hispanic these days.

I can attest to that. I grew up in Revere and Italians everywhere, but most eventually packed up and sold and moved further north up Rt1 probably between 2000 and 2010. Saugus, Peabody, Lynnfield, and towns in that general area.


I don't know if i would list myself as Italian or American. I partake in very little Italian culture these days. My parents are actually immigrants so I'm first gen.

[Boston Shudra]

Originally Posted by Boston_Burbs

I like that the "American" towns are some of the most Red/Republican towns in MA

Yeah, there’s an interesting right/left schism between places where people mark “American” or “European”. I figure both mean essentially the same thing (miscellaneous white), but one has a more nationalist edge.

Some other observations:

-Places that are very Polish also seem to be very Puerto Rican? I guess it’s just that both gravitate toward the Springfield area, but it struck me that Webster (in south/central MA) has a similar breakdown.

-Speaking of which, despite being two of the top 10 groups and both from the Spanish-speaking Caribbean, there isn’t a ton of overlap between Dominicans and Puerto Ricans outside of Lawrence. Boston and Haverhill have almost even splits, but there are a lot of places like Salem or Southbridge that have big numbers of one or the other.

-Similarly, outside of Boston itself Haitians and Dominican people don’t gravitate towards each other despite both having high representation in MA and both being from the same island.

-Speaking of MA’s Haitian communities, I was surprised that Harvard had a high concentration (even at a very low raw number). Other small towns near the top of that list were Hubbardston and Upton. Billerica is above-average too.

-I was surprised by MV having a lot of Brazilians. I also knew Milford would be high, but I didn’t expect it as high as it was.

-There’s a lot of talk about Lexington being the very Chinese suburb, but per these numbers Braintree and Winchester. I might want to look at the HS breakdowns for those 3 and see how it tracks.

-I’m planning to rank all groups from “most diffuse” to “most concentrated” at some point, but already Cape Verdeans stand out as really liking to stick to a small list of municipalities in the southeast.

[Boston_Burbs]

Originally Posted by Boston Shudra

Yeah, there’s an interesting right/left schism between places where people mark “American” or “European”. I figure both mean essentially the same thing (miscellaneous white), but one has a more nationalist edge.

Some other observations:

-Places that are very Polish also seem to be very Puerto Rican? I guess it’s just that both gravitate toward the Springfield area, but it struck me that Webster (in south/central MA) has a similar breakdown.

-Speaking of which, despite being two of the top 10 groups and both from the Spanish-speaking Caribbean, there isn’t a ton of overlap between Dominicans and Puerto Ricans outside of Lawrence. Boston and Haverhill have almost even splits, but there are a lot of places like Salem or Southbridge that have big numbers of one or the other.

-Similarly, outside of Boston itself Haitians and Dominican people don’t gravitate towards each other despite both having high representation in MA and both being from the same island.

-Speaking of MA’s Haitian communities, I was surprised that Harvard had a high concentration (even at a very low raw number). Other small towns near the top of that list were Hubbardston and Upton. Billerica is above-average too.

-I was surprised by MV having a lot of Brazilians. I also knew Milford would be high, but I didn’t expect it as high as it was.

-There’s a lot of talk about Lexington being the very Chinese suburb, but per these numbers Braintree and Winchester. I might want to look at the HS breakdowns for those 3 and see how it tracks.

-I’m planning to rank all groups from “most diffuse” to “most concentrated” at some point, but already Cape Verdeans stand out as really liking to stick to a small list of municipalities in the southeast.

I grew up in Ludlow, MA and we had 5 catholic churches up until the early 2000s

1) Polish
2) Portuguese
3) French Canadian
4) Ukrainian
5) Mix of Italian/Irish/"American"

They combined the Mixed church into the French Canadian which went find because the French Canadian population was dwindling.

My grandfather who immigrated in the 1950s said the Polish were always very welcoming to the Portuguese. My father attended the Polish catholic school in Indian Orchard, MA opposed to the French Canadian one in Ludlow. I think there was a mutual respect of how Catholic both groups were. Plus the Polish church has a well known "speed mass" at 5pm on Sundays. It was in English but there was no music so you were in and out in 30mins.

[GeoffD]

Originally Posted by Boston Shudra

-I was surprised by MV having a lot of Brazilians. I also knew Milford would be high, but I didn’t expect it as high as it was.

There's always been a lot of Portuguese spoken on Martha's Vineyard. Ethnic Cape Verdeans own a lot of the Oak Bluffs gingerbread houses. New Bedford had always been a big component of the seasonal workforce and lots of families still have family summer cottages & camps that go back 50+ years when real estate on a lot of the Vineyard was fairly inexpensive. The Wampanoag tribe is heavily intermarried with Cape Verdeans. It seems reasonable that Brazilian seasonal workers would end up in Martha's Vineyard and a number of them got green cards. It's such a small population that it doesn't take many to be statistically significant.

[BostonBornMassMade]

This is people who ONLY select ancestry. This isn’t for people who select all ancestries. So if you select Irish and Italian you don’t show up here at all.

And it omits African Americans as does all Ancestry recording.

[pennyone]

Originally Posted by massnative71

Apples and oranges. What percentage of those Asians in Lexington are Chinese? I doubt it's very high. In Quincy the Chinese are particularly concentrated in the Wollaston and North Quincy neighborhoods, where they easily make up the majority. It literally is Chinatown South. Suggesting Lexington rivals it, is laughable.

Interesting also that Wollaston and N Quincy are two of the most expensive neighborhoods in all of Quincy in terms of home prices....along with Squantum and Merrymount (which also have a big Chinese presence).

[Boston Shudra]

Originally Posted by BostonBornMassMade

This is people who ONLY select ancestry. This isn’t for people who select all ancestries. So if you select Irish and Italian you don’t show up here at all.

No, I did incorporate the “selected multiple ancestries” table into this data. However, I do suspect that the “multiple ancestry” option is really “exactly two ancestries” or at least that’s how it appears to be reported. So you can be Irish and Italian, but you can’t be Irish, Italian, Greek, and Portuguese. At some point, you either need to pick one or two or answer “American” or “European”.

And it omits African Americans as does all Ancestry recording.

There was a generic “African” option in the ancestry data that I thought might correspond to African American, but I just sorted the list by it, and the results don’t make sense. The towns with the largest concentration of people selecting that option seem to be Boxborough, Wellfleet, Blackstone, Randolph, and Leicester.

Lowell doesn’t have a large AA presence, does it? It’s #3 by raw number for people selecting “African” after Boston and Worcester. Lynn is #4.

[BostonBornMassMade]

Originally Posted by Boston Shudra

No, I did incorporate the “selected multiple ancestries” table into this data. However, I do suspect that the “multiple ancestry” option is really “exactly two ancestries” or at least that’s how it appears to be reported. So you can be Irish and Italian, but you can’t be Irish, Italian, Greek, and Portuguese. At some point, you either need to pick one or two or answer “American” or “European”.



There was a generic “African” option in the ancestry data that I thought might correspond to African American, but I just sorted the list by it, and the results don’t make sense. The towns with the largest concentration of people selecting that option seem to be Boxborough, Wellfleet, Blackstone, Randolph, and Leicester.

Lowell doesn’t have a large AA presence, does it? It’s #3 by raw number for people selecting “African” after Boston and Worcester. Lynn is #4.

People Reporting Ancestry has boston at 13.9% Irish. 90,383 residents.

Lowells blackpopulation is overwhelmingly African in origin, not AA. Thats not to say there are none.. but its definitely not more than say 2% of Lowells whole population.

There is neither formal nor official recording of African American ancestry by the United States government. Its on purpose of course btw.