The percentage of English-Americans by state
English-Americans are Americans of English descent. England was the first country to establish a permanent and long-lasting colony on the United States mainland, and they were the fathers of the Thirteen Colonies; English immigrants sailed from their homeland to establish colonies along the East Coast, and they brought with them English culture and Protestantism. From 1607 until the 1840s, almost all white inhabitants of the country were of British Isles descent, and the English-Americans later headed out to the American West, colonizing more lands and spreading their culture west. They used to be the predominant ethnic group in the country, but the 1800s and 1900s saw immigrants come in from other countries; by 2015, German-Americans were the largest ethnic group in the country, Irish-Americans the second-largest, and English-Americans the third-largest. 27,657,961 Americans are self-reported English-Americans (9% of the population), but the people who ethnically identify as "American" on the census (mostly white southerners) include people of English descent; if all of the "Americans" had identified with their ancestors, English-Americans would make up almost 16% of the population, which would make them the second-largest ancestry group. Famous Americans such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Edison, Ulysses S. Grant, Robert E. Lee, and Henry Ford were all of English ancestry; most of the Founding Fathers and almost all of the presidents were of English descent.