Pottery Chatroom Board

My paternal grandfather was born in Wales. His father was a police constable who died when Grandpa was about 10 and his younger brother about five. Their mother had to go to work as a housemaid for a family in Swansea, so the two boys went to live with their grandparents, who had a dairy farm. Then their mother re-married to a man who did not want the responsibility of the two young boys, so when their grandparents left the farm to their sons and emigrated to the US, they brought the boys with them. (See all the good stuff you can learn by doing genealogy?) Since my grandfather came here at about ten years of age, I never noticed that he had any accent.
My paternal grandmother was brought here from Germany at about age three, and she also didn't have much accent, although she could speak some German.
My in-laws however, came here when they were in their twenties, and never lost their strong German accents.
So I guess part of it is the age at which you learn a new language, and probably also has to do with your associates. My FIL was in business and spoke English at work, MIL stayed home and most of her friends were German ladies who spoke German by preference.
I also have my grandfather's American citizenship document, where it says that he "RENOUNCES the Queen of England". Grandpa became an American citizen in 1891, as soon as he hit age 21, which I guess was then the earliest age allowed. But of course a lot of people come here with the intention of getting whatever they can, and then going back in glory to "the old country".