MADISON, Wis. -- A local woman has been reunited with her twin after 52 years.

The family's story starts in Japan, continues with family scattered from Madison to San Diego, Calif., and ends with twins finding each other on the Internet.

Mary Ray Katsuma has two sisters in the flesh, and she found another one over the Internet.

"We always wondered if this was just some kind of a family story that was being told," said sister Gail Holiday.

"Seriously. Of course , Mom would never tell us a story that wasn't true, but for the longest time we were like, 'Sure, right, an identical twin,'" said sister Barb Kilbane.

Katsuma was told at a tender age that she had another sister out there -- an identical one.

"We were born in Japan at a very hard time in Japan, after the war in the '50s and my mother was helping support her family, so she could not afford two of us," said Katsuma.

"I tell myself, when you give it to somebody, it's not mine anymore. I cannot jump into someone else's family. So I tried to get to forget. I did not forget," said the twins' mother Michiko Holiday.

Katsuma did not forget either.

"All my life, all my life, anybody that I thought looked like me, I would run up (and say), 'Are you Diana?' Like a crazy person, but that's what I was doing, looking for her," Katsuma said.

Katsuma said she began scouring Classmates.com and Facebook, looking for Diana Lynn, her long-lost twin.

"And then her name popped up and clicked on the picture, and I almost fell out of my chair, because she was like a picture of me," Katsuma said.

A friend request later, Diana Lynn Martin said she was looking for her twin.

"And I wrote back, 'I'm that twin,'" Katsuma said.

"And then it was my turn to almost fall out of my chair," Martin said.

After 52 years, the two began talking, and both said they knew they would find each other eventually.

"Over the years as time was flying by, and it seemed like the chances of us meeting up was getting really slim, and I was going into depression because of it," Martin said.

"In my heart, yes, otherwise I don't know, I think I would have gone crazy because I just felt her all the time," Katsuma said.

And then on Valentine's Day, the twins and their families met for the first time.

They connected in Alabama, where their biological father now lives. They met their entire extended family.

"I feel like I'm blessed more than anybody in this country. I'm thankful. I don't know if there's anything better that could happen to me," said father Billy Ray Stone.

And for the twins, sisterhood is not only brings out the kid in them, it's making them whole.

"The hole has been filled up in my heart and it just feels so nice to have everybody and know everybody," Martin said.

"I feel my heart fulfilled too. Now it's like my heart is just so full now because everyone is in my life completely," Katsuma said.

Katsuma and Martin now talk almost daily via Skype or Facebook or phone, and they even have hopes of going to twins day in Ohio to try and make up for lost time together.