The time is the year 1900 or so. These are Polish people who lived around Minsk in modern day Belarus. They were Polish in culture, traditions, religion, foods, etc. These are my relatives. They came to America from my father's side. My mother's people came from the Lublin area. When they got together, they couldn't understand each other well. Those from Lublin said they spoke Russian. I know those from Minsk spoke Polish with heavy Byelorussian-Russian influence. Was there a name for this dialect?
@marion kanawha, yes, there is - it's called "dialekt północnokresowy" (the Northern Eastern Borderlands dialect):
pl.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialekt_p%C3%B3%C5%82nocnokresowy
A fragment from an article in Wikipedia (in English) about Polish language (from the section about dialects):
"Poles living in Lithuania (particularly in the Vilnius region), in Belarus (particularly the northwest), and in the northeast of Poland continue to speak the Eastern Borderlands dialect, which sounds "slushed" (in Polish described as zaciąganie z ruska, "speaking with a Ruthenian drawl") and is easily distinguishable."