White Africans of European ancestry White Africans of European ancestry White Africans of European ancestry are Africans descended from any of the white ethnic groups originating on the European continent. In 1989, there were an estimated 5.6 million white people with European ancestry on the African continent. Most are of Dutch, British, Portuguese, German, French, and to a lesser extent, Italian, Spanish, Greek, Russians, Jewish (Ashkenazi, Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews) or Irish descent. The majority once lived along the Mediterranean coast, in South Africa, or in Zimbabwe. The earliest permanent European communities in Africa were formed at the Cape of Good Hope; Luanda, in Angola;
Ethnoreligious group and ancestral ties. The legal assignement what is an ethnoreligious group can differ from the above given definition. Some ethnoreligious groups' identities are reinforced by the experience of living within a larger community as a distinct minority. Ethnoreligious groups can be tied to ethnic nationalism if the ethnoreligious group possesses a historical base in a specific region. In many ethnoreligious groups emphasis is placed upon religious endogamy, and the concurrent discouragement of interfaith marriages or intercourse, as a means of preserving the stability and historical longevity of the community and culture. Prior to the Babylonian exile the Israelites had already