An 82-year-old woman’s search to find her birth mother is finally over after 20 years, thanks to the help of her granddaughter.

Betty Morrell of Spring Hill, Florida told The Associated Press this week that she started looking for her birth parents after her adoptive parents died. She had tried to find information on her real mother in her 30s, but was told at the time that her mother had died in childbirth.

This wasn’t actually true, as Morrell’s granddaughter, Kimberly Miccio discovered. She started on the case when she was 12, but didn’t really have a breakthrough until September. Now 32, she used Ancestry.com to get in touch with a ditstant relative of her grandmother’s. The relative helped Miccio get in touch with Millie Hawk, a daughter of Lena Pierce.

It turns out that Lena Pierce, now 96, was Morrell’s mother. Morrell was born when Pierce was only 13 and Pierce named her Eva May. New York social welfare officials took the baby away because Pierce was also a ward of the state.

So, in addition to learning that her mother was alive, Morrell discovered that she had siblings - four sisters and two brothers.

“Kim and I got on the phone and called [Hawk]," Morrell said. "I had found my baby sister, who's 65. We just clicked. It was like we had known each other all our lives."

Her mother is now living at an assisted living complex in Hallstead, Pennsylvania. Morrell rushed to meet her.

“I hired private detectives, called adoption agencies and wrote letters to anyone that might have been able to help me,” Morrell told People about the search. “I believe in fate though, and I think we were meant to meet, when we were meant to meet.”

Morrell also told People that she didn’t think any of this was really happening until she met Pierce. She was convinced that there was no way that her mother was still alive. When they met, Pierce actually called her Eva May.

“The reunion was happy and sad at the same time,” Miccio told People. “Just to know that she had been thinking of her daughter for all those years, wondering where she was and what she was doing… I just can't imagine that happening with my own little girl.”