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Why We Ask Questions About...
Ancestry

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American Community Survey (ACS)
Within About the ACS
graphical representation of ancestry of the population

We ask a question about a person's ancestry or ethnic origin to create statistics about ancestry groups in America.

Local, state, tribal, and federal agencies use data about ancestry to plan and evaluate government programs and policies to ensure that they fairly and equitably serve the needs of all groups. These statistics also help enforce laws, regulations, and policies against discrimination in society.

Your privacy concerns

We use your confidential survey answers to create statistics like those in the results below and in the full tables that contain all the data—no one is able to figure out your survey answers from the statistics we produce. The Census Bureau is legally bound to strict confidentiality requirements. Individual records are not shared with anyone, including federal agencies and law enforcement entities. By law, the Census Bureau cannot share respondents' answers with anyone—not the IRS, not the FBI, not the CIA, and not with any other government agency.

Question as it appears on the form

We ask one question about a person's ancestry to identify the ethnic origins of the population.

Results from this question

We compile the results from this question to provide communities with important statistics to measure the characteristics of ethnic groups and tailor services to accommodate cultural differences. You can see some of these published statistics here for the nation, states, and your community.

United States

View Results for a State

View Results for a County or City / Town in (↑ change state using menu above ↑)

Ancestry data help communities:

Ensure Equal Opportunity

We ask about ancestry in combination with information about housing, voting, language, employment, and education, to help governments and communities enforce laws, regulations, and policies against discrimination based on national origin. For example, ancestry data are used to:

  • Enforce nondiscrimination in education (including monitoring desegregation).
  • Enforce nondiscrimination in employment by federal agencies, private employers, employment agencies, and labor organizations.
  • Enforce laws, regulations, and policies against discrimination in federal financial assistance (Civil Rights Act of 1964).

Understand Change

Researchers, advocacy groups, and policymakers are interested in knowing whether people from different backgrounds have the same opportunities in education, employment, voting, and home ownership. For example, ancestry data are used with age and language data to address language and cultural diversity needs in health care plans for the older population.

Where Irish Eyes Are Smiling

Click the image to view the interactive data visualization.

Where Irish Eyes are Smiling

[Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 2017-2021 American Community Survey 5-Year estimates]

History of ancestry question

The question about a person's ancestry originated with the 1980 Census. It was added to the ACS in 2005 when it replaced the decennial census long form.

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