Folkways includes traditions, foods, music, art, stories, values, and all the aspects that separate one family (or culture) from another. When we learn about the folkways of our ancestors we become connected to them in very personal ways. Sometimes we discover our own interests and talents seem to mirror those of our long-dead relatives – making them live again in us. Sometimes we learn the how and why of what our ancestors did, making them more than names, dates, and places: they come back to life. Get closer to your forebears by learning how to find out what your ancestor cared about most.
About Our Speaker
After moving from the Chicago suburbs to Southern California in 1973, Jean Wilcox Hibben obtained her bachelor's and master's degrees in Speech Communication and worked as a professor in the field for 13 years before leaving academia to pursue her passions: folklore and family history. She received her doctorate in folklore in 2008. She has been involved in family research for over 40 years and has traced her origins to Germany, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Holland, England, and France. Check the link on this site to see the names of My People. She is the former Director of the Corona, California Family History Center, in the Corona Stake of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and is still involved with working and teaching classes there. She was a volunteer at the National Archives, Pacific Region (Riverside County) until demands on her time and health issues intervened.
Jean has been on the Board of the Genealogical Speakers Guild (more biographical information is available on that website) and recommends that site to see the listings of other speakers in the field of genealogy. She was a Board-Certified Genealogist for 10 years (2006-2016 – she elected not to renew), She served on the Board of Directors of the Association of Professional Genealogists for four years and, as well, as the President of its Southern California Chapter (she is still on the board as “past president”). She is the 1st vice-president and webmaster of the Corona (Calif.) Genealogical Society, where she served a number of years as president, and =she was formerly the First Vice-President of the International Society of Family History Writers and Editors (now defunct). She belongs to the Daughters of the American Revolution, the Aurantia Chapter in Riverside County, California; to the National Genealogical Society; and to the Jefferson County NY Genealogical Society, where she maintains the quarterly column, “Ask Aunty Jeff” in their newsletter, The Informer.
She has been playing guitar for about 60 years and has added other instruments to my repertoire over the decades. She uses a number of these in her musical programs to give folks a feeling for the music their ancestors might have sung and played. To read more about that and the CDs she has recorded to date, please check out the pages on Details on Songs & Stories of Historical Events, Sights & Sounds, and CDs. She is active in a number of Southern California music groups, including the Riverside Folk Song Society. She lives in the Lake Mathews area of Riverside County, CA; is recently widowed; has 4 children, 25 grandchildren, and over 20 great-grandchildren. And some of those people are actually interested in family history. With all the descendants that keep joining the clan, she figures that the odds are in her favor that one or more will eventually be taking the genealogy baton from her! Contact her via email Thank you for your interest.
This program is not sponsored or endorsed by L.A. County Library.