Ontario resident Carlie McMaster says she submitted her DNA to Ancestry.com in 2019 to discover more about her father’s side of the family following his passing.

The 28-year-old Brantford, Ont., resident said she just wanted to learn about her family’s health history, when she made the discovery that would change her life.

The website matched her genetic information to a woman in Minnesota named Rylee Hall, and they began to chat about how they might be related.

“I didn’t really talk too much when Rylee first reached out because I just didn’t really know. I just kind of questioned everything … It was a shock thing,” McMaster told CTV News Toronto on Monday.

“I think it was four months later that I finally reached out again over Instagram and said let’s maybe try to do some digging and figure it out.”

At this point, she said, she and Hall were speaking frequently and discovering unique similarities – their mannerisms, the distinctive blue ring around their hazel eyes, and their musical background.

Carlie McMaster, shown in a childhood photo, says she discovered she was conceived through a sperm donation after submitting her DNA to Ancestry.com.

They eventually learned the similarities were no coincidence as McMaster and Hall shared a biological father and both were conceived through a sperm donation.

“I was shocked at first. I think it was a lot of questioning my identity but also being really excited to have this connection at the…