San Francisco woman finds new family through at-home genetic testing kit

SAN FRANCISCO (KTVU) - A chance meeting on the 23andMe DNA genetic testing website forever changed Tracy DeLuca's life. 

"Hey, Tracy this is Jim Alex's Father " I'm like who's Alex? Who is Jim? I don't know you people,  DeLuca said. 

Born to teenage parents, DeLuca was put up for adoption. Something that wasn't a secret.  She says she was always curious to find her birth parents.  

"My birth certificate was sealed so I didn't have any information to go off of to do a search. So this was the easiest way to get to the information," DeLuca said. 

In 2007, she gave her DNA to 23andMe. Over the years she had a few hits but nothing major. That is until June of this year. 11 years after joining, DeLuca was matched with someone who she shared a little more than six percent DNA.

"I'm not really sure what compelled me to finally go back and look again. But when I did I saw that I had I think a second cousin match," she said. 

That cousin was a 12 year old boy. Later his father reached out to DeLuca thinking maybe she was related on his wife's side.  It turned out he and DeLuca were blood-related.  

"He didn't know about me. He never knew that his aunt had a baby. He says you have two brothers and I spoke with the oldest one and he would like to talk to you," DeLuca said.

In August, she flew to Ohio to meet her birth mother and two new brothers.

"When we pulled in the driveway she liked slammed the door shut on everybody else and she was like this is my moment. It's just me and her," DeLuca said.

One piece of the puzzle solved, DeLuca then learned her birth father also lived in Ohio just four hours away. 

But this wasn't as big of a mystery since she knew he was around but they never connected.

"He had released his information to me saying he was open to being contacted but that was like 20 years ago," said DeLuca.  

By the end of August, she flew to Ohio again, this time to meet her birth father and his two other daughters. One of whom was getting married.  

Now for the first time in her life, DeLuca has two new families and she's the oldest child. 
She says this new discovery means a lot to the man and woman who raised her since she was a baby.

"They're much older and so they were like, we've always worried that when we pass on we wanted there to be other people there to love you," DeLuca said.