Three sisters who were torn apart in the so-called Sixties Scoop have found their way back to each other again.

Montrealer Margaret Murray, who goes by her spirit name Nakuset, and her sisters Rosemary and Sonya Murray, were separated at a young age.

This was not an isolated incident: the numbers vary, but an estimated 20,000 – 50,000 aboriginal children in Canada were taken from their families and placed in foster homes or adopted between the 1960s and the late 1980s.

“It was an assimilation process that finished right after the residential schools,” explained Nakuset, who said the girls’ mother had gone to a residential school.

Sonya  Murray, the oldest sister, now lives in Kenora Ont. She said she had been looking for her sisters since age 12, but it took the advent of social media to reunite them.

She said she remembers the day she was separated from Nakuset.

“I woke up, her bed was made. It was as if she’d never been in it. She was gone,” she said. “When I asked my foster parents where she was, all they said was, ‘She’s gone now.’ They never told me where she went, never gave me a chance to say goodbye,” she said, calling it “very methodical,” with “no consideration of [her] feelings.”

Raised in Austria, Rosemary said she was “very blessed” that Sonya found her, added that she had been hoping for this day for 30 years.

Nakuset said it was thanks to Sonya’s perseverance that the three sisters were reunited. Even after she found her sister on Facebook, it took 11 months before Rosemary noticed the friend request on Facebook on Saturday.

“She has been fighting to bring us together – it was a life goal,” said Nakuset, adding that she hoped the three sisters could visit with each other in person in Austria.

For now, Nakuset is thrilled with the reunion.

“It’s wonderful to be reunited with my sisters,” she said. “I’m so happy.”

With files from CTV Newschannel