My New Jersey in-laws and New England friends complain about Southerners: "They talk so slow, you want to shake it out of them faster! And they talk to everyone around them. You have to wait in line behind someone because the clerk in the store is asking them how their cousin's wedding went, and if their grandmother-in-law's rheumatism is acting up." Then I hear my Alabama and Tennessee friends say that they can't understand a word those New Yorkers and Bostonians say, "They talk so fast and sound so funny. Can you imagine—they pahk their cahs?"

And I, the genealogist, say, "Hooray for our differences—long may they survive—for they provide important clues to our roots and our ancestors." It's usually simple for anyone to determine that a speaker is a "Northerner" or a "Southerner." But listen more closely for clues in the form of pronunciation, usage, and regionalisms that can lead us to identify a dialect from a specific region. Studies have shown that New England's past unique dialects emerged from the Massachusetts Bay area and the Lower Connecticut River Valley, or that the Upper South contributed her dialects to southern Illinois and Missouri. Many pronunciations or meanings lead directly back to the British Isles or Ireland or Germany.