Cracking the Case: Solving the Jackson–Reade Genealogy Mystery

The oral tradition passed down through generations of Jackson descendants hinted at a prestigious connection—claims of descent from the Reade family, a line tied by blood to figures such as George Washington, Thomas Nelson, Meriwether Lewis, and other notable leaders from colonial Virginia.

But in genealogy, family lore is just the beginning. The real challenge? Finding the paper trail—the records, documents, and DNA—that prove the story. And that’s where this six-year mystery began.

A Whisper, a Lead, and a Cousin with a Clue

My cousin Kelly and I were both intrigued. We’d heard that the Jacksons might be connected to the Reades—one of those “if this is true, it changes everything” kind of family claims. We didn’t want to chase ghosts, but we couldn’t resist the lure of proving it true or false.

We were told that a distant cousin had found something that confirmed the link—something about the Eastern Shore. Unfortunately, when I reached out to her through her Ancestry.com page, I learned she had passed away just a couple of months earlier. I hadn’t wanted answers handed to me—I just wanted a nudge in the right direction. But that door had closed.

Still, we had a few solid leads to start with.

What We Did Know

We knew with confidence that James Jackson (1790–1836) had married Frances Reade (1790–1818), and that Frances was the daughter of a Francis Reade. Confused? Don’t worry—we were too.

For clarity: Francis with an “is” is typically male, and Frances with an “es” is female.

Family lore also said that this Francis Reade descended from Col. George Reade and his wife Elizabeth Martiau. If true, that would link our family directly to early colonial founders, French Huguenots, and even royalty. It was the kind of legacy that sounds too good to be true. So, we started digging.

The Chancery Records Breakthrough

Hours turned into months, and months into years. But we eventually found gold in the Virginia Chancery Court Records. These records are a genealogist’s secret weapon—full of disputes over wills, land, and property, often revealing intimate details of family relationships.

Turns out, the Jacksons liked to sue each other. A lot.

In one case, we uncovered that Francis Reade had two sisters, Dorothy and Nancy, and two brothers, Bailey and Robert. Even more revealing: Frances, Nancy, Dorothy, Bailey and their father Francis, had died around the same time. Those deaths created a ripple effect that showed up in the chancery records—and gave us the first real confirmation that we were on the right path.

And then... nothing.

We hit dead end after dead end. We were just about ready to shelve the project.

Six Years In: A Return to Virginia

Fast-forward to June and July 2025. We decided to make one last push and planned a trip to Virginia—a long weekend of research, determination, and a little hope.

We visited the Middlesex County Courthouse but didn't find anything we didn't already have.  We also visited Gloucester County Courthouse, only to learn that two courthouse fires had destroyed most records before 1862. Strike one.

Then we turned to the Mathews Library, which houses a genealogy department and has an on-site genealogist. That’s where things started to shift. We began finding pieces of the Reade puzzle—mentions in land deeds, church records, and community histories—but we still weren’t sure which Reade was our Reade.

Enter: Artificial Intelligence

By this point, we’d also started using AI tools, including ChatGPT, to help comb through documents faster than we ever could manually. While AI couldn’t give us direct answers, it was incredibly helpful in highlighting patterns, surfacing lesser-known resources, and (crucially) suggesting that we might be chasing the wrong Francis.

The AI pointed us instead toward Benjamin or John Reade, not a string of “Francis Reades” as we had originally believed. That small shift in perspective opened up a new direction.

The Bible, the Ship, and the Breakthrough

Read Bible Excerpt

While at the library, I came across a Reade family Bible. Inside was a listing for a Rev. Thomas Read, son of Gwyn and Dorothy Reade, along with his siblings—including a Francis Reade born at the right time to be our missing link. We filed it away as “interesting, but unconfirmed.”

Later that evening, back at the house, we revisited what we’d collected and dug deeper. Using a combination of online records and a ChatGPT-assisted search that led us to the Library of Virginia, we found documentation about Captain Francis Read, who had a ship captured by privateers. He, too, fit the timeframe and location of our Francis.

LoVA Francis Reade ship capture

We went to bed exhausted, our minds spinning.

At 7 a.m. the next morning, I opened my door to find my cousin waiting for me, wide-eyed.

“I’ve been up since 4 a.m. I figured it out.”

And she had.

The Lineage Revealed

Our Francis Reade (1756–1818)—father of Frances Reade, wife of James Jackson—was the son of Gwyn and Dorothy Reade.

• Gwyn Reade was the son of Benjamin Reade and Mary Gwynn, of the Gwynn family who founded Gwynn’s Island in Mathews County.

• Benjamin Reade was the son of Col. George Reade and Elizabeth Martiau, tying us directly to:

  • Nicholas Martiau, early Jamestown settler

  • The Plantagenet kings of England

  • And the Merovingian dynasty

Just like that, the brick wall came tumbling down.

What’s Next

That discovery has opened up whole new avenues of research. We’re now looking into the life of Captain Francis Read, his siblings, and extended Reade cousins. There’s more to uncover, and we plan to share updates as we go.

This journey took six years, hundreds of hours of research, and a lot of dead ends. But in the end, persistence (and a little help from technology) brought it home.

So to all you genealogy sleuths out there still chasing a mystery—don’t give up. Your breakthrough might be waiting in a chancery record, a family Bible, or even a line in an old AI search you overlooked the first time.

On to the next challenge!