Here are two stories by Alma members who recently contacted us in regard to their searches!
First: Male Adoptee!!!
Ed, male adoptee, wrote to us 3/25/2011 and said he wanted to thank us for everything we had done for him. He was connected with his birth father, and found him to be a great guy. He only lived about seven hours (driving time) from him. They did a DNA test and the results were 99.99% positive (can't get better than that!).
The birth father and his wife came to visit him for the weekend recently, and they got connected. The birth father was alittle overwhelmed when he met Ed's big family. They had a nice dinner with Ed's wife and Ed. Then they stayed over and met Ed's children the next day and night.
The birth father's wife had done considerable search and brought information about his birth mother, and it is sad to know she passed away about four years ago. His wife also brought a high school picture and an obituary from the local paper for me to keep.
Ed shares with us that it meant so much to him for all we did to find his birth father. He says, "This is a true success story for The ALMA Society.
Submitted by Ed, March 25, 2011
Here's a story written by a birth mother in search of her son born 1960 in Cleveland, OHIO.
Jan says she wants to share what happened with us and others! "I must tell you that on February 24, 2010, I was sitting in my home watching TV and playing Solitare on my computer. I had just finished talking on the phone with a friend of mine.
Then my phone rang, and what happened next changed my life! That was the phone call from ALMA search assistant, Marie. We talked about the child I had given up for adoption 51 years ago. I had joined The Alma Society back in 1991. I quite honestly didn't even remember when he was born. She asked if I had ever found my son, and I replied, "No." I had written letters to Catholic Charities, the State of OHIO, and quite honestly, I had given up hope in ever finding him.
Well, we hit the jackpot! The very next day, Marie called and had located information about my son, his full amended name, and where he lived. "Thank God for Marie!" How fortunate The Alma Society is to have her! (ALMA thanks all of their reliable, diligent search assistants). I have invited my son and his wife to visit me this summer at my expense, and I think, like Ernie says, "We both feel like kids at Christmas!"
My heartfelt thanks to The ALMA Soicety and what they do to help others.
Submitted by Jane S. (3/28/2011)
"I had always known that I was adopted and had always been curious about my birthparents. In 1990 another adopted friend of mine asked me to go see a play called, "A Name You Never Got" by Ronda Slater, about her reunion with the daughter she had given up for adoption. In the lobby were pamphlets for ALMA. I then joined ALMA and began my search. I talked with my adoptive parents, and since my adoption was a private adoption, more information was passed both ways than an agency adoption. They told me what they knew about my birthmother. They knew her first name, and that she was a student at UC Berkeley at the time I was born. They also told me that when I was about 5 years old, they saw my birthmother's wedding announcement in the local Berkeley newspaper, and that she had married a dentist with an Italian surname (not my birthfather). So, with this information, I then spent the next 6 months at the Berkeley public library, looking at the microfilm of the old Berkeley Gazette for the 1960's, checking the "women's interest" section for wedding announcements that matched my information. On June 2, 1991, I found it! All the information matched, and there was a s