It was a cancer diagnosis that led Lizzie Shaltz to use DNA testing, but she never thought she'd discover siblings she'd never known about living just an hour away.

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Shaltz tells Detroit's WDIV-TV that she knew she had been adopted and that her biological mother had opted for a closed adoption. The Lansing woman is a cancer survivor and when she began having other health issues, she decided to submit a DNA sample to MyHeritage.

“Honestly, the only reason I was looking was health reasons. I was tired of getting all these ailments,” she tells the TV station. "And I didn't want to keep guessing what I'd get."

Shaltz says she discovered a few distant DNA matches but didn't think much about it until she had a match with someone likely to be her biological sister.

Lizzie's half-sister reached out to her on Facebook. She then discovered she had a half-brother as well as some aunts and cousins all from her father's side. Most of these family members had lived about an hour away from her for most of her life.

She then learned that her biological father has been deceased since 2009 and that he had no idea of her existence. However, Shaltz is still completely in the dark about her biological mother.

Take a look at Shaltz's reunion with her newfound family members in the video below.

"I just can't believe I have another chapter of my life out here," she says. "It's another book to add to my story."

 

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