The Entire History of English Migration Into America — And Which England You Came From

English is the largest ancestry in America — and the only one almost nobody bothers to investigate. There was never one England. The people who sailed to Massachusetts and the people who sailed to Virginia came from different counties, spoke differently, worshipped differently and treated their women differently. Some of them went home and fought each other in a civil war. A Puritan farmer from Suffolk and a bonded servant from Bristol had less in common than a modern American and a modern Australian — and their descendants both write "English" on the form. This is the complete history of English immigration to America: the four colonial migrations, the forgotten industrial one, and how to work out which England your family actually came from. In this video: Roanoke and the word carved on a post. Jamestown, and the winter that left 61 people alive out of 500. The archaeological evidence of cannibalism found in 2013. The headright system that rewarded importing human beings. Why three quarters of English arrivals in the Chesapeake came bound. The Bristol servant registers. Why the Pilgrims barely mattered and the Great Migration did. The East Anglian towns whose names are all over Massachusetts. Roger Williams, Anne Hutchinson, and the four Quakers hanged on Boston Common. William Penn's Holy Experiment and the North Midlands Quakers. The northern English hidden inside the "Scots-Irish". The Barbados planters who built South Carolina. Maryland's Catholic founding and the Toleration Act of 1649. Why Georgia was not a convict colony — and where Britain actually sent its 50,000 convicts. The Staffordshire potters of Ohio and the Cornish "Cousin Jacks" of Michigan. And why 25 million Americans vanished from the English column of the census. Chapters 0:00 There was never one England 3:00 Roanoke 5:30 Jamestown and the Starving Time 10:00 Tobacco, headrights, and 1619 13:00 Who really came to Virginia 17:30 The Pilgrims were a footnote 20:00 The Great Migration 24:00 East Anglia on the map of Massachusetts 26:00 What the Puritans actually believed about freedom 29:00 William Penn and the Quakers 33:00 The English inside the Scots-Irish 36:00 South Carolina came from Barbados 39:00 Maryland and the Toleration Act 41:30 The Georgia myth 43:00 Britain's 50,000 convicts 47:30 The invisible immigrants 51:00 Cousin Jacks and Staffordshire potters 54:00 How 25 million people left the English column 58:00 Which England did you come from 63:00 What surnames can and cannot tell you 66:00 The records, and the burned counties 70:00 Why DNA cannot answer this 73:00 The Albion's Seed problem #EnglishHistory #Genealogy #AmericanHistory #ColonialAmerica