Even though we look toward the future, it's always interesting to see where we came from (pretty heavy first sentence to start this article, right?). We all have an idea on where our family comes from. Whether they were immigrants, Native-Americans, survivors of the slave trade, we all have this want to know where we come from.

A new study has come out that shows each states most common ancestry, and the second and third most common ancestries. Here's a hint, Quad Citizens share a lot of the same ancestry.

A new study from our friends at Zippia has come out showing each state's most common ancestry. To find out each state's most common ancestry, Zippia turned to US Census Ancestry data.

There they found the single ancestry with the highest number of residents reported, then used the same method to find the second and third highest ancestries.

Zippia does note that the data from the US Census Ancestry is self-reported, which relies on people accurately knowing their own heritage. They found that 21% of Americans are unable to name a single great-grandparent, which means that chances the data is skewed is probably high. The lack of knowing one's heritage may have also contributed to the large number of respondents in every state who chose “American” as their ancestry.

This is a map of the most common single ancestry in each state:

Here are some fun facts that Zippia found about the most common ancestry:

• The most common single ancestry in the US is German, with over 50 million Americans of German descent and 21 states claiming German heritage the most.
  • Prior to WW 1 when it fell out of favor, German was the second most common language in the US.
• 19 states claim “American” as their ancestry the most.

This is a map of the second most common single ancestry in each state:

Fun facts Zippia found about the second most common ancestry:

• American remains a common response.
• 10 states claim “English” as the second most common primary ancestry

This is a map of the third most common single ancestry in each state:

What is the first, second and thirst most common ancestries in the Quad Cities? If you go back to the first map, Iowa and Illinois are very German. American is the Quad Cities second most common ancestry. For the third most common ancestry, Iowa and Illinois differ. Iowa is more Irish, while Illinois is more Polish.