Although Tammi Summers and her five siblings were dispersed between various family members and foster homes when they were young, they’ve all stayed in touch — all except one, that is.

Summers and her three sisters, Traci Crosby, Pamela Walker and Shonda Sims are now in their 40s had given up hope of ever finding their baby sister — Carrie Marie Carrico.

But that’s changed now, thanks to years of persistence and some clever Internet detective work.

Summers and Crosby made separate trips to reunite with Carrie, now named Katie Adams, in August. Last weekend, Summers, Crosby, Walker and Adams spent the weekend together with their families at Summers’ home at High Rock Lake.

“It’s like a puzzle that’s missing just one piece and now we found that one piece,” Crosby said.

By the age of 18, their mother already had three children and a history of child abuse and neglect.

When she brought Adams home from the hospital, she didn’t even have a crib for Adams to sleep in. Instead, they emptied out a dresser drawer for her, and Summers, who is the oldest, became her primary caretaker. She was 11 at the time.

“It was awful,” Summers said.

“She was our live doll-baby,” Crosby recalled.

In August of 1978, shortly after Adams was born, the Department of Social Services picked the girls up from school and put them into foster care.

“It was right after school started — I remember,” Summers said.

She and Crosby were sent to live with aunts in Winston-Salem and Greensboro. Sims went to live with her father in Burlington. Walker was sent to a foster family in Independence, and Adams was adopted when she was just 19 months old. Shortly after, Adams’ new family moved to Louisiana, then again to Arkansas.

Walker stayed with 24 different foster families before she found a good fit. To this day, she calls them “mom” and “dad.”

“We all went different places,” Crosby said.

“It was hard because we wanted to be together,” Summers said, adding that she made sure the girls stayed in touch and saw each other at least every few months.

“You have so many trust issues.” Crosby said. “You learn to be strong.”

Six years later, their brother, Jesse Rodgers, was born.

When the girls attended summer camp growing up, they demanded to stay together.

Even though they didn’t know where Adams was, she was always on her sisters’ minds.

Summers said they always wanted to know if she was OK.

Even their mother, who passed away four years ago, “always loved her” and “always talked about her,” the women said.

Adams said she always knew she was adopted, and that her adoptive parents would read her stories about adoption when she was young.

Although she was always curious about her biological family, her interest was piqued when her adoptive father died when she was 15.

When she was 17, Adams’ adoptive mother gave her all the information she had on her adoption.

In an attempt to find her adoptive family, she put her information on several popular adoption forums and called every Carrico listed in the phone book in Galax, Va.

On Adams’ 18th birthday, her birth mother was able to read her adoption file.

“She got part of it right,” Crosby said, explaining that the sisters had an accurate last name and the lawyer’s name, but they didn’t know Adams’ name had been changed from Carrie to Katie.

They tried to find Adams using that information on and off throughout the years.

Then one day, Summers’ daughter-in-law, Julie Summers, suggested that she post something on Facebook with the information that she knew and ask people to share it in hopes that it would eventually get to her missing sister.

When Julie saw Summers’ post, she decided to do some digging of her own. To her surprise, she found Adams’ adoption forum posts from nearly 20 years ago.

“My husband went and found her on Facebook in like 10 minutes,” Summers said. “I was shocked.”

Adams didn’t see the message at first. When she did, she went to her adoptive mother’s workplace and they “sat in the break room and cried.”

When she did reply, they sent her baby pictures.

“The second I saw that, I knew,” Adams said.

“We bombarded her with questions,” Crosby said.

“At first it was really overwhelming,” Adams said. “Now it’s perfectly normal.”

The sisters said they loved seeing how much alike they are even though they didn’t grow up together.

Summers said the relationship has come easily. “It’s just like normal.”

In fact, things are going so well Adams is planning to move to North Carolina in June.

Her two daughters came along for the trip this past weekend, and they’re already attached to their cousins.

“My son and her daughter looked like siblings,” Crosby said.

Since the women connected in August, they helped Adams find her birth father and she’s been able to meet him.

“It’s neat actually having blood relatives,” Adams said.

“We’re all complete. It’s the best feeling in the world,” Crosby said.