What is First Ancestry, Second Ancestry, and Total Ancestry, and which should I use?
“First Ancestry” is a designation we use on some data products to show the groups that were reported first in response to the ancestry question. Likewise, “Second Ancestry” is the groups that were reported second. For example, if someone wrote in Jamaican and English, their First Ancestry would be Jamaican, and their Second Ancestry would be English. “Total Ancestry” is the sum of responses, or the number of people with Jamaican ancestry, regardless of whether it was their first or second response. To further the example, a 1990 table showed that the number of people of Jamaican ancestry was 410,933 for First Ancestry and 24,091 for Second Ancestry. This could be interpreted as “There were an estimated 410,933 people who listed Jamaican first and 24,091 who listed Jamaican second”. To get the total number of people who reported Jamaican as either their first or second ancestry, add up the number of Jamaicans from First Ancestry and the Second Ancestry, resulting in 435,024 people (or t
