RLP 386: Disappearing Act: John Royston Apprentice

Nicole (1s):
This is Research Like a Pro episode 386: Disappearing Act: John Royston, Apprentice. Welcome to Research Like a Pro a Genealogy Podcast about taking your research to the next level, hosted by Nicole Dyer and Diana Elder accredited genealogy professional. Diana and Nicole are the mother-daughter team at FamilyLocket.com and the authors of Research Like a Pro A Genealogist Guide. With Robin Wirthlin they also co-authored the companion volume, Research Like a Pro with DNA. Join Diana and Nicole as they discuss how to stay organized, make progress in their research and solve difficult cases.

Nicole (41s):
Let’s go. Today’s episode is sponsored by newspapers.com. Hi out there everyone listening, welcome to Research Like a Pro.

Diana (49s):
Hi Nicole. How are you doing today?

Nicole (53s):
I’m doing great. I’ve been working on the finishing touches for my Sally Keaton in Arkansas report, the third phase of Sally Keaton. And I just focused on trying to find any clues about her and her extended family from the time they lived in Izard and Fulton Counties Arkansas. And I had kind of finished up everything last week, but I didn’t write the conclusion. And so somebody in the study group commented on my report and I went and looked at it and then I realized I needed to add the conclusion and I only had 10 minutes before we started podcasting, So I decided to see if I could just use the Gemini sidebar within Google Docs to write the conclusion.

Nicole (1m 33s):
So I opened it up, so I’ve been writing this entire research plan and then the report all within the same research project document, just because I was trying to be efficient this time with that and I was writing as I went along and all that. And so I just went ahead and opened up the Gemini sidebar in that document where all of the research plan and all of the findings and the, you know, all the report was and just said, write a conclusion for this report. And it did a great job. It was very succinct, but it covered the main highlights of what was found, what wasn’t found. The, half of the objective was met, I figured out kind of the main reasons why they moved to Arkansas and the other half wasn’t really met, I didn’t really find any more information about what, when Sally died.

Nicole (2m 23s):
Her headstone just says after 1880, but she wasn’t on the 1880 census. And I did a little more searching in the 1880 census and didn’t really find anything, didn’t find her on the 1880 mortality schedule. Didn’t find anything really with her name on it at all in Arkansas, except for the census records I already had. So it wasn’t really that successful as far as that part. But I did find a couple other things with some of the FAN club research I did. So it summarized that pretty well and I was happy with that. And then the next section I had to do was the results summary. And so I just told Gemini in the sidebar, the next thing you need to do is create the results summary, starting each bullet with an action verb.

Nicole (3m 8s):
And it did a great job with that too. And it just missed one thing and I told it make a bullet about, you know, negative findings for Sarah’s death date and ’cause it kind of skipped that and then it added that one bullet and then I was done.

Diana (3m 22s):
Isn’t that awesome? I love using AI

Nicole (3m 25s):
Yeah, and just as far as disclosing for my readers and for myself for future reference, I just put before the conclusion I just wrote written by Gemini: and then pasted it and then the same thing for the results summary, so that I would remember that it was all just written by Gemini.

Diana (3m 42s):
Yeah, that’s great. I did the same thing for my latest study group report. I did it with a citation. I just put, you know, the little footnote, the beginning or at the end of the results summary. And then at the bottom did a footnote to say this was generated by Claude based on this report. But I find the result summary and the conclusion to be just such a good way to use AI. It’s amazing. I agree sometimes you do have to tell it to add a little bit more. Sometimes the conclusion it doesn’t include quite enough and I want it to be a little bit more detailed and so, you know, it’s just really easy to tell it to do more or add something. But having it get started for you is just such a time saver.

Nicole (4m 25s):
Yeah, I did edit a couple things about dates and things. Just it, it is nice to have it get started and then go in there and fix it the however you need it, so.

Diana (4m 36s):
What I found is you just have to be careful that it doesn’t make any assumptions. Because when I read through the conclusion, there were a couple things in there that I thought, oh, this is possible, but the way it was worded sounded like it was that’s the way it was. And so I had to add some qualifiers like, hmm, this is a possibility. So you know, we do have to be the human in the loop as we say, and always check AI, make sure it is how we want to put forth our research, not just how AI interprets it.

Nicole (5m 6s):
Hmm, such a good point. I like that. And it probably a prompt tip would be to just include some kind of statement like write the conclusion and don’t make any inferences. Make sure you use the same qualifiers used in the text, such as possible, likely, and don’t make anything seem more certain than it is.

Diana (5m 26s):
That actually is really, really good. I really like that idea. Well, let’s do some announcements. We have our Research Like a Pro Webinar Series for 2025 coming up, this is our last one of the year. This one is on a Tuesday, December 16th at 11:00 AM Mountain Time. And I will be presenting my case on Henderson Weatherford. I have been researching him for a few phases now, I believe at least two, maybe three. So I have come to some good conclusions, made some fun discoveries. So I titled this, Challenging Accepted Ancestry, a New Look at Henderson Weatherford’s Family Origins.

Diana (6m 6s):
This presentation examines how careful analysis of historical records can overturn commonly accepted family connections based on surname and geographic proximity. Henderson Weatherford’s case demonstrates an effective methodology for questioning family relationships found in online trees through systematic evaluation of tax records, census documents, land records and probate files. Learn how indirect and negative evidence can build a compelling case for new family connections. We’ll examine the role of DNA and confirming hypotheses derived from documentary research. So I’m excited to share my research and how I did this. This is one of those cases where 10 years ago I just didn’t know what else to do with this family.

Diana (6m 50s):
And so it’s been so neat to see how learning how to do better research and how to use indirect and negative evidence makes such a difference. The next study group we are excited to announce we’ll be with DNA and it starts February, 2026 and registration is opening soon, on December 5th, 2025. So be sure and check it out if you’re interested in joining us. If you have been through the study group before and you have a report written, you can apply to be a peer group leader, the application’s on our website. Then you have complimentary registration. Join our newsletter that comes out every Monday to learn about new posts, upcoming lectures, get coupon codes for any specials that we’re running.

Diana (7m 36s):
And we’re excited for RootsTech, which is the next major conference coming up, coming so fast. It’s March 5th through 7th, 2026 and we will be there. We will have our booth. And I have three different lectures that I’ll be presenting. So we hope you’ll come by and say hi when we’re there. And we are also excited to talk about our new Research Like a Pro Institute, which takes place April 30th to June 11th. This will be on Thursdays from 9:00 AM to 2:30 PM Mountain time and our coordinator is Jan Joyce. The course is titled Merging and Separating Identities: Advanced Techniques to Organize, Analyze, and Solve.

Diana (8m 21s):
And if you’re interested in this, will be a fabulous institute, you can see the complete schedule at FamilyLocket.com. You can learn about the instructors, the specific classes and see if this is something that you would really like to be involved in to help you with your research. Well, today we get to talk about one of our ancestors. He is kind of the scoundrel in our family. He is one who tended to run away and disappear. So these types of ancestors can leave very interesting records that give us more information than we might find in the usual census or deed.

Diana (9m 2s):
And this is the case of John Royston who ran away from his employer when he was a 19-year-old apprentice in Virginia. This was one of those records that in the very early stages of my Royston research I discovered, and it was so fun. Well, I decided to write a fun blog post about it for one of the 52 Ancestor series. And I’ve been using AI to help me learn about the context, and in this case, I even used it to generate a couple of fun images that came from the description that we’ll be talking about in this episode.

Nicole (9m 42s):
Alright, this is so fun. So this originally came from The Virginia Gazette and within that there was an advertisement that had the employer, Samuel Daniel, who was a subscriber to The Virginia Gazette, talking about how his apprentice ran away. And so the ad in The Virginia Gazette says, “Run away from the subscriber and apprentice lad named John Royston. He is the son of Mr. Richard Wyatt Royston of Gloucester County, 19 years old last September, about five feet six inches high, has a frowning down look and light brown hair tied behind, though not very long, had on a light colored frize, frizé coat with a small cape to it and bound with ferreting, a new broadcloth waist coat and breeches, I think blue or blue gray, of pretty fine cloth.

Nicole (10m 38s):
And took with him sundry other clothes. He rode away on a small iron gray mare and an old saddle, which has been one of the best kind though much worn. He may pretend to know something of the chair making and blacksmith business. I hereby forewarn all persons from employing or harboring him on their peril. Any person that will take up the said apprentice and bring or convey him to the subscriber, shall receive 30 shillings reward paid by Samuel Daniel N.B. I have great reason to believe he is in Bedford County or Prince William among his acquaintances.”

Nicole (11m 18s):
So that was quite the ad down to the clothing he was wearing and the horse and the saddle. And it does sound like Samuel Daniel was very unhappy that his apprentice ran away with all these things. Well, since it had such a fun detailed description, it was such a great opportunity to generate an image with AI. So that was kind of a fun exercise. So Diana asked AI for an image that matched the description in the ad. So she provided that ad text. And then ChatGPT actually came up with the entire ad with an image of a guy on a horse added to it.

Nicole (12m 4s):
And it even included the print in 1770 style, you know, where the lowercase s’s kind of looked like the long S and look like an F when they’re printed. And so that was fun. And then the picture of John, he kind of has a grumpy face. It must be his frowning down look. And he’s riding on a, a small horse. So that was fun and AI did a great job with that. Next, she actually tried creating an image using Gemini as well, and she went straight to the Google AI studio website using Gemini 2.5 flash and she asked AI to create an image based on just the description.

Nicole (12m 57s):
And so it didn’t know it was an advertisement and it generated an image in a photo realistic style. And it’s really interesting to see this photo. I mean, it looks like a photo with a man wearing a cape with a collar and like the blue gray color clothing underneath. It was really good. And he has a frowning down look. He’s making a, a grumpy face and looking down. So that was funny. And so mom, did the Gemini put the Gemini watermark in the image for you?

Diana (13m 38s):
Yeah, it does. So I use the new nano banana and it does put the little watermark down there. So I think that’s helpful. I, if I were to ever put this anywhere, you know, like in the blog post, I clearly have it labeled that this was AI and I would never put it up, say on FamilySearch or Ancestry because it would just confuse people. I mean, we obviously didn’t have cameras in 1770, especially that would look this good, but you never know if people would really think it was real. So if I were to use it for fun, I would probably put something even more explicit, you know, maybe even text across it, generated by AI, not just the little Gemini symbol ’cause not every one maybe would even recognize what that was.

Nicole (14m 25s):
Yeah. Well I like how you have a caption on it.

Diana (14m 29s):
Yeah, it’s pretty, pretty good to have a caption on it, especially since it is so realistic. But I thought it was super fun to see what it came up with and especially since I had that great description, we don’t usually have a description of an ancestor like that, so it was pretty fun.

Nicole (14m 45s):
Yeah, well I really like that the image kind of has that black and white almost sepia tone. But then the color, there is some color added,

Diana (14m 54s):
A little bit of Boom,

Nicole (14m 56s):
Yeah, and a little bit of red on the cape. And his hair almost looks like it could be red or orange. I mean, not that we know his hair color, but it was supposed to be light brown, I think. But the other thing I was going to say is that the nano banana, the name, that’s the nickname given to Gemini 2.5 flash’s image generator. So that’s what nano banana means.

Diana (15m 24s):
Isn’t it fun that they gave us something very unique instead of just image generator 2.0, you know, something so generic. So I, I like it when they come up with something unique and fun.

Nicole (15m 38s):
Yeah.

Diana (15m 38s):
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Diana (16m 34s):
It’s a gift of discovery, of connection, and of countless untold stories waiting to be found. Just head over to Newspapers.com/gift and use promo code, FamilyLocket to purchase a subscription for someone special. That’s newspapers.com/gift. Your favorite genealogist will thank you. After I had generated those images, I wanted to learn more about the context behind the advertisement. So at this time I used Claude AI and requested some additional information. So Claude did some searching on the web and provided some additional details and it included links so I could verify.

Diana (17m 16s):
It first of all, it gave me some historical context at the advertisement. And so Claude wrote, “The Virginia Gazette was Virginia’s first newspaper established in 1736, and runaway advertisements were extremely common and profitable for the newspaper. These advertisements for servants or slaves runaway provided important run revenue for the Virginia Gazette various printers. Colonial Williamsburg between 1736 and 1783 landowners advertised in The Virginia Gazette for more than 3,500 fugitive runaways, including enslaved people, indentured servants and apprentices.”

Diana (18m 0s):
So I thought that was fascinating that this was just a very common thing for people to advertise. And I did see on the page a lot of other advertisements. Well, something else that AI came up with was talking about the apprentice system in Colonial Virginia, and it said indentured servants and bound apprentices were separate categories. Bound apprentices were typically American-born children, usually orphans or from impoverished families who could not care for them. They were under court control and bound to work as apprentices until a certain age. In England, apprentices learning a trade typically had contracts lasting one year after which terms were renegotiated.

Diana (18m 46s):
But Colonial apprenticeships generally lasted much longer. So the sources for those were the, were Wikipedia and the Encyclopedia of Virginia, and also a website called Colonial Williamsburg. So I really appreciate getting links and sources when I am, you know, trying to do some research on this and understand the context.

Nicole (19m 10s):
Yeah, it’s really great to have those, like instead of having a Google search page with like links you have to click on and go read it there, to have it kind of summarized for you in the AI so that you can then kind of get an overview and then you can click the link to go view more at the site where that came from, If you wanna dive deeper. This is kind of a nice way to search. And I find it when I’m doing Google searches, I kind of wish that I had the AI summary on. Sometimes I don’t get that and I’m like, oh, I should go over and just do this search in in ChatGPT or whatever. So it’s interesting that now our internet searching is kind of transitioning into this.

Nicole (19m 51s):
Like AI gives you a summary of the pages, you know, that you’re finding. And I know some of the websites out there probably worried about people not coming to their site anymore if they’re relying on ads, you know.

Diana (20m 6s):
Right. Yeah. But responsible use means that you go really look at the source, and not just believe what AI tells you, so.

Nicole (20m 13s):
True.

Diana (20m 13s):
Hopefully it’s still working for people because we want people to keep putting up great content, you know? So

Nicole (20m 21s):
Yeah, side note, I was going to ask you though, with that context about the indentured servants versus the bound apprentices, so what’s your theory on why John was an apprentice?

Diana (20m 35s):
Well, his family had been in the colony since 1626, I think is when the first Royston, Thomas Royston arrived and settled in Gloucester County, Virginia. And so this is several generations later, and I don’t know if they were impoverished, if that was why he needed to be lent out, you know, or maybe he just needed to learn a trade. The sad thing about Gloucester County is it’s one of those severely burned Virginia counties where we literally have no records. The way we’ve been able to piece together the family is through parish records.

Diana (21m 15s):
So it was part of Petsworth Parish, and that’s how we’ve have been able to, and when I say parish records, I, it’s not like birth, marriage and death, it’s their vestry book where they just talk about the work of the parish, but it will name some relationships. And so scouring those we’ve been able to piece together the family, and of course this advertisement is key because it does name the father. So that’s just a long way of saying, I have no idea if the family had lost their land, what was going on, why he needed to be an apprentice, or maybe he was just a troublemaker at home. And his dad said, okay, now you have to go be an apprentice because you can’t live here anymore.

Nicole (21m 55s):
Yeah. I wondered that, you know, he was a troublemaker or did his father die? I mean, do we know when Richard Wyatt Royston passed away?

Diana (22m 4s):
Oh, that’s a good question. I’ll look that up.

Nicole (22m 8s):
Yeah, I’m curious because it said orphans and so, you know, even if his mother was still alive sometimes without the father there, they were considered an orphan and then they were bound out because they didn’t have a father to maybe train them in his own trade or whatever it was.

Diana (22m 26s):
That is such a good point. Okay. His father, Richard Wyatt Royston didn’t die till 1790.

Nicole (22m 33s):
Hmm.

Diana (22m 33s):
So he was, he was well alive. Yeah. That’s such a fun question and one that we may never know the answer except for we can look at his later life and patterns and see perhaps that gives us some clues.

Nicole (22m 49s):
Yeah, so just to remind everyone, this advertisement came from 1770 and his father didn’t die till 1790. So it definitely, he wasn’t an orphan as far as we know.

Diana (23m 2s):
And the father was in that vestry book of the parish and so he seemed like he was pretty prominent in the community. So I don’t think he was impoverished either. He was doing all sorts of things in in the area. So I, that is making me lean towards the idea that perhaps John just needed to go learn to do something with his time.

Nicole (23m 23s):
Yeah. And he was a troublemaker, so his dad said, you’re going to be an apprentice now.

Diana (23m 29s):
Yeah, yeah. And he didn’t like it and he ran away. He’s not happy because you know, you think, okay, why would someone run away? Well maybe the man he was apprenticed to was treating him poorly or maybe just didn’t like to work. Lots of questions.

Nicole (23m 41s):
Yeah. I mean, I was just thinking that he was treated poorly but also maybe didn’t like to work

Diana (23m 47s):
Well and if the family was of a little bit higher class and he felt like he shouldn’t be, you know, that he was feeling like he should was higher socially, you know, that could be another point that he didn’t feel like he should be doing the work he was made to do. Yeah, fun to think about, isn’t it?

Nicole (24m 7s):
But it does seem like he got away, right? Because there’s no record of him going back. Do we know?

Diana (24m 12s):
We don’t have any other records. We don’t know.

Nicole (24m 17s):
The rest of his life, I mean he lived a life. We’ll talk about that later.

Diana (24m 24s):
Okay.

Nicole (24m 24s):
So going back to the clothing, after having that description of the clothing, it’s natural to be curious about what that clothing was. So the next question Diana asked AI with Claude was, tell me more about the clothing he was wearing. And she was using Claude’s reasoning model, which shows its thinking process, and it was also searching the web, which is great that Claude can do that now. So Claude responded with the following. So first, the light colored frize coat, which I looked up how to say that I think I originally said frezay. It’s spelled F-R-I-Z-E. So apparently that’s pronounced freeze.

Nicole (25m 4s):
The light colored freeze coat. Freeze was among the common Colonial textiles available in America. It was a course wool fabric, quite different from the fine fabrics we might associate with the name today. At Jamestown, the Virginia company supplied suits of canvas, frize and broadcloth to early colonists indicating frize was considered suitable working class fabric. And that information came from the Cornell website and then the coat featured a small cape to it, which was typical of working men’s outerwear in the period. The fact that it was light colored suggests it was either undyed natural wool or a pale dye.

Nicole (25m 48s):
Darker colors were more expensive and showed less dirt. And then for the phrase, bound with ferreting, this is a particularly interesting detail. Claude says, ferreting refers to binding the edge of fabric with tape, typically used on the bottom of petticoats or the edge of felt hat brims, glossary of 18th century costume.

Diana (26m 13s):
Well, Claude continues with the discussion of the new broadcloth waste coat and breaches, And it said this represents the most significant piece of John’s wardrobe. Broadcloth was a heavily fulled or napped wool fabric with a simple tight weave and smooth flat surface that was durable and easy to sew. It became the everyday fabric across Colonial America and could be made of materials found in the colony such as flax or wool. And that came from the website, Colonial Williamsburg Silhouettes Costumes. AI continues, broadcloth was common for men’s clothing and came in various weights with super fine broadcloth being extremely tight woven and dense used for uniforms and outerwear.

Diana (26m 56s):
Then we also know that the fact that these garments were new and made of pretty fine cloth suggests they were of good quality, likely a significant investment for an apprentice. The blue or blue gray color is notable. Blue dyes were available but more expensive than natural colors. When serge de Nimes was made of cotton in blue or black by 1770, it became what we know as denim. And this color choice suggests that these were not everyday work clothes, but rather John’s best garments. Hmm. Well that again lets us know that the family, or he, had resources to have something that seemed a little bit nicer than maybe what someone would wear who was very, very poor.

Nicole (27m 39s):
And it kind of makes you wonder if Samuel Daniel, the employer, had purchased those items of clothing for his apprentice, or if they were something he came with to the apprenticeship from his family. And I think the employer is supposed to like provide room, board and clothing for their apprentice. Right? Maybe I’m just making that up. But

Diana (27m 60s):
It could be either scenario I think.

Nicole (28m 1s):
And we don’t also know how long he had been apprenticed there either.

Diana (28m 6s):
Right.

Nicole (28m 7s):
So that’s interesting. So what does this clothing reveal about John Royston’s status? Well, Claude had something to say about that. So it continued on and said, the combination of garments tells us several important things, that maybe he was of a mixed social status. John wore a working class frize code alongside fine broadcloth garments suggesting he occupied a middle position above common laborers, but below the gentry. And then investment in appearance, men’s waist waistcoats and breeches continued to be fashionable throughout this period and working class people often wore the same garments as fashionable people, though they owned fewer clothes and they were made of cheaper fabrics.

Nicole (28m 47s):
So this is from a Wikipedia article, 1750 to 1775 in Western Fashion. John’s new and pretty fine broadcloth garments suggest either his master provided quality clothing or John or his family invested significantly in his appearance. Claude goes on to describe skilled trade men’s attire, colonial men’s formal attire included suits made of woolen broadcloth, and waistcoats were standard. These styles indicated respectability and skill level. And this is from A Brief Look at Colonial Attire – on the the thread website. As an apprentice chair maker and blacksmith, John would need to present himself respectively to potential customers.

Nicole (29m 33s):
And I was going to ask you, do you, do we think Samuel Daniel was a chair maker or a blacksmith or both?

Diana (29m 40s):
Well, that’s a good question and that would be an excellent research project because believe it or not, I have not researched Samuel Daniel and that would be awesome to learn about him.

Nicole (29m 52s):
Yeah, I’m curious maybe he was both.

Diana (29m 54s):
It seems kind of like an odd combination, doesn’t it?

Nicole (29m 57s):
Yeah.

Diana (29m 57s):
So that does make me wonder, but that would be really fun to research and see if he has any other advertisements for other, any other apprentices or just to learn more about him. That’d be fascinating.

Nicole (30m 9s):
Yeah, that that would be interesting. And I wonder if maybe his dad was a chair maker and Samuel Daniel was a blacksmith, so he learned a little bit of each or maybe the other way around, who knows.

Diana (30m 19s):
Yeah,

Nicole (30m 20s):
It sounds like though we think that Richard Wyatt Royston might’ve been in the gentry if he was in the vestry book so much.

Diana (30m 27s):
Yeah, maybe or I like how Claude said he could be just like they’re in the middle, you know, not working class, but maybe not the upper class either. Just a little bit there in the middle bit. So that’s an interesting point.

Nicole (30m 43s):
Right. Well Claude continues to give us some more ideas for what the clothing can tell us. One is flight preparations. The fact that John took with him sundry other clothes suggests he planned his escape carefully and intended to maintain a respectable appearance to avoid suspicion while traveling. And lastly, Claude says that the 30 shilling reward offered by Samuel Daniel reflects not just John’s skills as an apprentice, but also the significant value of the clothing he wore. Quality Broadcloth garments represented a substantial investment in 1770 Colonial Virginia.

Diana (31m 18s):
Yeah, that really agrees with what we were talking about. Well, I was really pleased with the quality of the photos. I thought those were so fun and the research on the clothing, it did give me some good context. All the information about apprenticeships and Colonial Virginia and the assessment that John came from, that middle class meshes with what I know about the family as we’ve been discussing. So Thomas Royston, the immigrant ancestor, got thousands of acres of land there in Gloucester County, Virginia in the 1600s. It was under the head rights system where for every person you brought over from England, usually as indentured servants you would get so much land.

Diana (31m 59s):
And so we do have those records of how much land he had. And I’ve been just looking at my tree and some of the information to answer some of the questions. So his dad, Richard Wyatt Royston in 1770 was taxed for 800 acres and paid, you know, for a white tithe, seven enslaved people, two horses, eight cattle. So he seemed fairly prosperous. And then in the vestry book in 1771, he is the clerk of the new church. And then here’s a very interesting one that I need to get my hands on.

Diana (32m 40s):
In 1772 to 1774, there is a court case of guess who? Richard W Royston versus Samuel Daniel.

Nicole (32m 48s):
Hmm.

Diana (32m 49s):
So that makes me wonder what’s going on there. And then he signed a legislative petition and both John and his father Richard, signed this legislative petition in 1778. So there are quite a few different records there for both of them. And John, right after he disappears, you know, in 1770, he went back to Gloucester County. It’s not like he disappearing forever because, well he’s the signer, there’s the land record for him. So here we go again. Daniel, Samuel Daniel, plaintiff versus John Royston, defendant, 1773.

Diana (33m 30s):
Okay. I need to research Samuel Daniel and figure out what all this was going on. I’m sure that’s going to add a lot of, a lot to the story. So he apparently went home and then they’re involved in some legal battles.

Nicole (33m 46s):
Yeah, he probably wanted his apprentice back. Well, what are you looking at, the notes that you’re looking at right now with these dates and things?

Diana (33m 54s):
My Ancestry tree. So I had put all of this information into my original, you know, when we were working with Ancestral Quest and putting this, these details in, and I have not personally looked at these court records. We have another Royston researcher who has since passed away who would go up to the courthouses and the Library of Virginia every summer and do a lot of this research. And so he shared it with me, but I only have, you know, the abstracts. So now that we have so much online, I am pretty sure FamilySearch has a lot of these original records so that I could just pull those up and learn all about them.

Diana (34m 37s):
That will be a big project because there are so many records on John, so many records. So, but that’s exciting to think about how fun it will be to go discover more. But I especially wanna look at this court record of Samuel Daniel and learn all about this court case.

Nicole (34m 55s):
Yeah, it would be interesting to see if these are chancery court cases because I know Library of Virginia has a lot of the chancery cases up and maybe they’re just digitized right there as well.

Diana (35m 11s):
They could be. Yeah. And some of these records are in Gloucester County and then he moves on to another county, Loudoun County, and he is there for a few years and then he is got some records in Fairfax County and then he leaves Virginia altogether and goes south to Newbury County, South Carolina, then over to Georgia. So he, he really did move around a lot. He was not afraid of starting over in new places, but he’s in court records every place he goes. So, which is not surprising. I mean, they used the courts for all sorts of things. That was the way, you know, things were run. He had a problem, he just took it right to the court.

Nicole (35m 55s):
Yeah. Well this is really fun to imagine what John Royston, the runaway apprentice looked like and to learn more about what his clothing might have been able to tell us about his social status, what a good lesson in analyzing every little detail and a fun lesson and how AI can help you put together a lot of information along with the links to the websites that it came from to help you understand things. So this was really fun. Thank you.

Diana (36m 21s):
Well, you’re welcome. It’s so fun to go back to previous research. This is research I did clear back in 2005 and up to about 2008. And so this was, this is really old research, which is why I have not been as detailed as I probably should have been because I didn’t know any better. You know that we learn all the time and so now I see that I can go back and do more with it, which will be really fun.

Nicole (36m 47s):
Yeah, this would be a fun mini project when we do the January 14 day mini challenge to just kind of like dive into the Samuel Daniel connection and learn a little more about that.

Diana (36m 59s):
Oh, that’s a great idea. Yep.

Nicole (37m 1s):
Well, thanks everyone for listening today, and we’ll talk to you again next week. Bye-bye.

Diana (37m 6s):
Bye-bye.

Nicole (37m 4s):
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