YORK COUNTY, Pa. -- An adopted woman in Pennsylvania received quite the surprise this summer after taking a DNA test, discovering she has hundreds of relatives living all over the country - including five biological siblings!
Her name is Glenn Leonard, and she's a paramedic and firefighter living in New Freedom.
It all started when she connected with her birth mother about 10 years ago and found out her biological grandmother died of breast cancer.
With two children of her own, Glenn wanted to test her DNA to see if she had any unknown health issues that could be passed on to her kids.
Thankfully, the test revealed no gene mutations. Instead, it uncovered something much greater - family.
A photo taken earlier this summer captures the moment Leonard reunites with her biological siblings, four brothers and one sister all living in Virginia.
"They have been so accepting and so wonderful to, you know, want to meet me!" Leonard told WPMT.
"It was a little overwhelming, and I'm sure not as overwhelming for me as for Glenn!" said her newly-discovered little brother Tim Morris.
Glenn went 53 years without knowing she had any biological siblings.
She took a 23andMe genetics test, which revealed more than 900 hundred family members all throughout the country
"The first name that popped up, they said, 'we estimate this a first-cousin', and she had the same last name as my biological dad, so you can't deny DNA, so I sent her a message through the 23andMe website, and like five minutes later, she texted me back," explained Leonard. "I call her my touchstone because she got everything rolling, and has been so wonderful in getting me in touch with everyone."
Since the reunion, Glenn has learned more about the Morris family history and her father, who died before she ever got the chance to know him.
"A lot of people think I do look like him, and two of my brothers had told me they were like, 'wow, you're more like him than most of us!'" said Leonard.
Glenn now has an entire photo collection of her family, given to her by her siblings.
Those photos help paint an even greater portrait of who she is. The Morris family plans to get together again very soon.
