Reunion of a Lifetime : Families: Four siblings who were adopted meet after decades of separation. They swap stories and find shared traits.

It wasn’t a family reunion, exactly.

But what do you call it when four grown siblings get together for the first time?

“A meeting, “ Jan Fishler ventured. Debbie Fellers, the sister she had met only three hours earlier, grappled for another word, then found one. “It’s a curiosity, “ she said.

Friday was indeed a curious day for the two new acquaintances and the brother and sister they would meet--decades after their adoptions by different families. The siblings arrived one by one at Debbie’s beauty supply store in West Hollywood, each time setting off a top-to-bottom search for something shared--the color of the eyes, the side the hair is parted on, the movement of the hands.

The get-together began when Jan walked in. The two sisters looked at one another, paused, and started shrieking in recognition.

“It’s just a hoot to walk in here and see somebody who looks like me,” said Jan, 44, who lives near Sacramento. Both women had been raised as the only child in their adoptive families--Jan in Ohio, Debbie in Los Angeles.

Jan set the wheels in motion last year on a search for her birth parents. She discovered she was one of eight children born to the same mother. “I just wanted some information,” she said. “I didn’t expect to have seven brothers and sisters.”

That discovery set off more searching--aided in part by dogged detective work by a newfound brother, Raymond Adamic, 47, a tire store owner who lives outside Cleveland. Using birth and adoption records, he made scores of fruitless phone calls with only a last name to go on. The final piece fell into place last fall.

It was not a comfortable find, though. Debbie’s parents had never told her she was adopted and for years ducked questions about her birth and her mother’s pregnancy. Raymond’s successful hunt by telephone forced the issue.

Debbie’s adoptive mother told her the truth the day after Thanksgiving. “She’s having a hard time with it,” said Debbie, who is 40. She said she planned to introduce her newfound siblings to her adoptive mother this weekend.

Their other sister, Bridget Disney, a 37-year-old data analyst who traveled from Omaha for the mini-reunion, had found Raymond 15 years ago, but they never knew their sisters.

Now, five months and hundreds of hours of phone calls later, the siblings know each other as more than acquaintances, if not yet family. They do not know birthdays or whether holiday cards were signed with the right or left hand.

They also know little about their biological mother, now deceased. Her name was Jane and she was from Ohio. She gave three girls away. “Our mother kept all the boys, but put all the girls up for adoption,” Bridget said.

Jan and Debbie were raised Jewish, Bridget as a Catholic. Raymond lived with his mother until age 13, then he and four brothers raised themselves, he said.

Raymond’s arrival in West Hollywood late Friday afternoon drew them all to the sidewalk. The four blocked pedestrians, hugging and sizing each other up. All are about the same height--5 feet, 5 inches. Debbie and Jan have the same angular faces. They also have the same voices. Jan discovered that the first time Debbie left a message on her answering machine.

“My daughter said: ‘Mom, why are you leaving yourself a message?’ ” said Jan, a writer and producer of training videos.

Debbie noticed that they even dressed alike.

“After being raised as an only child, the concept--it’s like I’m watching this really trippy story,” she said.

The group planned a pizza party with Debbie’s husband and children Friday night. “We’ll probably stay up till all hours of the night, just exchanging stories,” Debbie said.

How does one spend a weekend with siblings lost for half a lifetime?

“We’re probably going to go to the beach tomorrow and get to know each other,” Jan said hopefully. “Maybe we’ll go to Universal Studios.”