The Bob Story

 

The Bob Story

I am trying to put down my story as it seems the older I get, the more I forget ...And the more I am finding out.  This genetic time line has taken many twists along the path but in spite of dead ends and lost links it has been very colorful and fruitful over the past forty plus years.  Soo here goes.  Most of this connection is recorded in other formats but primarily now on Ancestry.com utilizing the family tree function.  A seeker of DNA components to their past could use other companies.  However it is a fact that these guys have the biggest database to work with and when searching the world for answers that size does matter.  It can also lead you astray as there are many rabbit holes out there.  I should probably title this “The Bob’s DNA Story”...However..it is very important that anyone seeking information as I have to realize that there is so much more in your makeup than DNA.  DNA is very important but culture and nuclear family are at least as important.  That is why I wince when people use terms like “my Real parents”.  Jack and Virginia were my real parents as were my bioparents, and Bill is my very real brother.

The conundrum to be known as Robert Michael Vlach was born on October 7th 1944 at Providence hospital in Oakland, California.  At birth I was adopted by John Tormey and Virginia Mary Vlach.  My first home was on a ranch near Port Chicago in Contra Costa county owned by Jack’s parents John Douglas and Loretta Vlach.

In August 1946 my parents adopted another boy from the same hospital, William Patrick.

We lived on the ranch until my dad passed away in our mid teens, from heart valve failure.  A result of Rheumatic Fever in his early years.  Probably one of the first of many ironic twists in my life’s journey was that a couple of years later they invented the artificial heart as well as the use of replacement heart valves from pigs. 

Following the passing of my adopted father, Bill, mom and I moved to Sacramento to be closer to her brothers.  We both finished high school in Sacramento and then I went on to Sacramento State College to graduation.  Bill went to San Francisco following high school, going first to San Francisco State and then on to a very successful career in the mental health field.  Our mom never kept our adoption status a secret but she had very little information in her records and neither Bill or I really pursued our histories in earnest until many years later,

To Be Continued: