Recently, Thom returned to broadcasting as a volunteer jazz host for the local NPR network, Northern Indiana Public Radio, hosting "Nightflight Jazz" on Thursday evenings and "Sunday Jazz Brunch".

Thom was an active amateur genealogist, and he was more than happy to share information he learned about the  family trees with others who may have common links.

Major family surnames linked to our families include Lydy, Fisher, Scott, Blake, Shaw, Kitterman and (in England) Dixon.This site links 3,177 persons, from 846 families, in pedigree style. Mostly, our ancestors lived in the Pennsylvania-Ohio-Indiana-Illinois area, and the ancestral background of both the Foulks and Manning familes is English (including Welsh, Scotch, and Irish). Our narratives area has dozens of stories about individual family members.

A tour through these files will take you back through thirteen generations, all the way to the Welsh countryside of 1500s England and families whose surnames were Morgan, Taylor, Bronaugh, Tyler, and Walker. You'll meet a Morgan -- a Foulks great-grandfather -- who was a friend and Revolutionary War compatriot of George Washington. (Both family trees include ancestors who were members of the Continental Army.) Another Foulks -- a great-uncle of Thom's -- was a famous Indian scout.

The Mannings and Blakes were clearly among the early settlers of colonial New England -- there were so many of them, we've not been successful in determining all of the linkages. (A John Manning was an ensign in the British forces defending Boston in 1640. The Massachusetts Colony included several Blakes. ) A Taft and a Monroe ancestor of the Manning family were cousins of two U.S. Presidents. Two Foulks ancestors are said to have arrived in America as trans-Atlantic stowaways (one from England, one from Germany), and both were indentured in the Colonies to pay for their passages. Another Foulks ancestor was tried...but not convicted...for murder (even if a town was named after him, briefly). A Fisher ancestor was one of the first settlers of Kansas. A Lydy is a family Civil War hero for simply surviving the inhumanity of the Andersonville prison camp. There are also great-aunts with significant roles in American history.

Many of the sources of this information have been amply cited by various family members, from several linked families, who have been researching data for more than 50 years.