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Accents

I'm now 82 and was almost 24 when I left Brum. Spent about 40 years in Dorset and 15 years in Crete, but I'm instantly identified as a Brummie even now.

No, your Honour, I've never been near the place, honest!

Guilty as charged! Send him down!

Maurice :cool:
so they should:mad:
 
I was recently surprised to discover that an accent/pronunciation can affect your family history research. I knew that my 3 x great grandmother, Ann came, from the south of England. Specifically, according to the 1851 census, Cornwall/Devon and she was living on the Hagley Road. DNA placed her ancestry in Cornwall but how far back this is I don’t know as yet.

Ann was married to Benjamin Boughton who had been baptised at Edgbaston Old Church. Despite looking for all combinations there was no sign of the marriage in the Midlands or in Devon or Cornwall. Then I discovered Ann & Benjamin BOOTON! Married in Devon and the bride lived in Stoke Damerel. Definitely them as their daughter, Jane, was baptised some years later in Edgbaston.

As they seem to swap between Booton and Boughton on various records I imagine it depended on which of them gave the information.
 
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There are, I guess, many recorded anachronisms, based on dialects particularly when many people were illiterate.
Not in the same context, however, are the interpretations of foreign names when dealing with their new adopted countries officialdom.
Many Americans have 'anglicised' names which were given them when immigration clerks at Ellis Island dealt with them.
 
Rosie, the strangest one I saw was when the enumerator tried to translate Ballymacward from an elderly lady, with presumably a strong East Galway accent, put Bellymegherde!
 
my army mate "Johno", came from West Brom, and spoke with a deep Black Country twang, it was hilarious when in Germany ordering beer in Brummie German, "Garbanzie meer, einer bier bitter", in broad black country. Paul
 
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