German Texans are an ethnic category belonging to residents of the state of Texas who acknowledge German ancestry and self-identify with the term. From their first immigration to Texas in the 1830s, the Germans tended to cluster in ethnic enclaves. A majority settled in a broad, fragmented belt across the south-central part of the state. In 1990, about three million Texans considered themselves at least part German. German Texans form a subgroup of German Americans.
A large portion of the early settlers were Forty-Eighters, who dispersed into areas of Central Texas, where, after a period of activism during the 1850s, Civil War and Reconstruction, they lived in relative obscurity as teachers, civil servants, merchants, farmers, and ranchers.
The Adelsverein, or Verein zum Schutze deutscher Einwanderer in Texas (Society for the Protection of German Immigrants in Texas), was a group of Germans dedicated to colonizing Texas in the 1800s.
1 Poles came to the United States legally as Austrians, Germans, Prussians or Russians throughout the 19th century, because from 1772-1795 till 1918, all Polish lands had been partitioned between imperial Austria, Prussia (a protoplast of Germany) and Russia until Poland regained its sovereignty in the wake of World War I.
7 Disputed; Jews and Roma both have recognised origins and historic ties to Asia (the Levant and Northern India respectively), but individual groups listed here experienced at least some distinctive identity development while in diaspora among Europeans.