Amador County Ancestry

08/13/2026

♥️ It was an incredible honor to be asked to give this presentation, by my very own high school history teacher, Mr. Keith Davis. In case you are interested in hearing a live presentation of what you've read here... plus a few NEW bits of discovery that I haven't shared here yet, please join us! FREE to attend, donations to the Kennedy Mine are appreciated.

08/05/2026

♥️ It was an incredible honor to be asked to give this presentation, by my very own high school history teacher, Mr. Keith Davis. I hope that some of you might be interested in hearing a live presentation of what you've read here... plus a few NEW bits of discovery that I haven't shared here yet. FREE to attend, donations to the Mine are appreciated ~ and there will be refreshments!

Amador County Historical Society

06/27/2026

💗 In a world that by all accounts, was very rugged and rough, with the number of men FAR outweighing the number of women, I’ve been thinking about the matriarch of this family lately and what it must have been like as a woman raising a family during the very earliest days of white folks in Amador County. I have spent the past 2 years digging for information on her husband and oldest son… but sometimes you need to switch gears to make more discoveries. So I’m planning to take a little jump into her line of heritage and see what’s there to find. I am sharing her headstone again today, to bring her some attention that she most assuredly deserves.

All I know so far is that Sarah Ann (Leith) Shealor was my 4x great grandmother and died in Volcano, in 1863. Some records say she settled there in 1853, other clues say 1848. Her two brothers, oldest son and daughter-in-law are all buried next to her. 🌳

06/27/2026

♥️ In 1853, my Shealor family ancestors settled on their land grant in this area, just above Lockwood Station (on what is now known as Gold Creek Trail). The patent was purchased from a man who received it from the US government, for fighting in the Mexican-American War. They built a sawmill on this land and supplied timber to the Keystone Mine, in the 1870’s. This helps to explain what their route must have been, while they transported the timber to Amador City.

This is along Shake Ridge Road a short distance west of California State Route 88.

Shake Ridge Road is an approximately 20.5-mile rural highway located in the Sierra Nevada range of Amador County. Shake Ridge Road begins at California State Route 88 near Antelope Creek and extends westward via the Shake Ridge formation to Gopher Flat Road at the Sutter Creek city limit. The segment of Shake Ridge Road east of Fiddletown Road was part of several spur roads which connected the mining towns of Amador County with Carson Pass.

By the 1880s the Shake Ridge Road corridor was extended west of Fiddletown Road to Amador City via Amador Creek. Shake Ridge Road would be realigned in the late 1930s to Sutter Creek via Gopher Flat. The Shake Ridge formation was once thought to have a volcanic origin during the early days of Amador County.

06/09/2026

🌳 I shared awhile back that one of the local organizations I volunteer for took me to the beautiful Shenandoah Valley in the Fall (see prior post). In April, that same organization took me again to Preston Castle in Ione. My great grandmother Ruby SHEALOR Watt, and my great grandfather Milton Watt both worked at Preston. Milt dedicated his entire career to Preston, serving as the Head Blacksmith and blacksmithing teacher there for over 40 years.

For Christmas a couple of years ago, I purchased a brick to benefit the Preston Castle Foundation,Ione, as a gift for my mom. I had not yet seen the brick installed in their brick garden, so I grabbed the opportunity to hunt for it. So touching to see their names displayed in a place of honor, right in front of the place where they spent so much of their lives. A full circle moment.

Lots of great photos here, see captions under some of them.

06/09/2026

🌳 One of my favorite things about the monthly board meetings for the Amador County Historical Society, are the stories I get to hear, and the things I get to see. One recent example was this old whiskey bottle donated to the County Archives, originally sold by E(nrico) Ginocchio & Bro. in Jackson.

I had already learned a little about the Ginocchio family when I dug into my brother-in-law’s family history in the Middle Bar area (the Giannini’s, see prior post)… but since I always love to be able to make tangible connections, I looked just a tiny bit deeper to help visualize the people and lives behind this simple bottle.

See captions under photos.

06/08/2026

🌳 In March, I had the opportunity to attend another historical talk put on by the Sutter Creek Community Benefit Foundation. This one featured JoAnn Levy, local author of the 2 books pictured here. She had some fantastic stories to share about women in the California Gold Rush, and I had been wanting to add these books to my collection!

04/06/2026

Established in 1849 in an area rich with placer gold, the business section of Volcano, California included seventeen hotels, eleven shops, three bakeries, a couple of saloons, a theater, and even a community library. Tens of millions of dollars in gold were eventually mined here.