The family of an Illinois boy reported missing in 2011 says they’re “very cautiously” optimistic DNA results expected Thursday will confirm that a 14-year-old who appeared in Kentucky is him.

The teen, found Wednesday in Newport, Kentucky, told cops he was Timmothy Pitzen and “just escaped” two kidnappers, who had held him captive for seven years in southwestern Ohio, authorities said.

His grandmother, Alana Anderson, said she’s praying the DNA tests deliver the news she’s been desperate to hear since the boy went missing nearly eight years ago after his mother apparently killed herself.

Police believe Amy Fry-Pitzen picked up her son from school, then took him to the zoo and a Wisconsin water park before her body was found in a Rockford, Illinois, hotel on May 15, 2011.

“I’m very hopeful that it’s him and that he’s OK and he’s been in a good place when he was gone and that he’s going to come back to us,” Anderson told news station WXIX.

The teen told investigators Wednesday he “kept running across a bridge” away from his captors, who he claimed were holding him in a Red Roof Inn.

Sharonville police in Ohio made contact with the teen calling himself Pitzen when a local resident reported a possible car theft, news station WIFR reported.

“From out the window, I couldn’t see who was standing to the curb,” Sharon Hall told the news station. “But I looked out and came back in and … there was a young man standing by my neighbor’s car.”

The FBI said its offices in Louisville and Cincinnati were working with local law enforcement.

Pitzen’s family is hopeful their years in torturous limbo will end on Thursday.

“They have DNA samples of Tim. They will be able to verify a hundred percent whether it is him, and they will have those results by [Thursday afternoon],” his aunt, Kara Jacobs, told news station WMAQ.

With Post wires