how many of us knew our great grandparents?

[Nimbostratus100]

following on from @waggytailswetnoses thread, which piqued my interest, but turned out to be sadly disappointing, here is the thread I was hoping for! Did you know your great grandparents? Or further back? WHat were they like?

I didn't. She was born in 1865!

I’ve been lucky in that my family come from quite a remote area where property doesn’t change much and local records are good.

As a result not only did I know great grandparents but also knew and remember great great aunts who were all born around 1900. I have photographs of them with my great great great grandparents at that time (happy to share if you’d like to see!) on one family line. On that same line I have my great great great grandfathers longcase clock from 1860, still running and in my hallway. On another family line I traced back to my 5 x great grandfather - his property still exists (a very humble bothy, acquired and restored by the NT) and I got to go inside.

On my grandfathers line, my great great great grandfather was a master joiner. We have two of his chairs and a Welsh dresser, which have been handed down.

i’m defiantly the ‘keeper of family records’ and I’m very sentimental about these things. I spend a lot of time cataloging and researching - it’s a fascinating hobby!

No excuse! My lovely granny was born in 1888 and I was born 92yrs later.

I didn't know any of my grandparents, so no idea about my great grandparents.

My grandparents were born in 1890s...

That's hurting my head a bit. My ggf would have been born in late 1880s or early 1890s. Grandma born after ww1 (think it was 1924). She met my gf before he was deployed in ww2, and they wrote throughout the war, married when he got back. Mum born 1946, I was born in 1970s, my kids in noughties. So I'm only a couple of years younger than you I reckon? But our generations have shifted. My parents were born just after ww2 finished, so it was my grandparents war.

My great grandparents died when my grandad was a child and was raised by his grandmother (my great great grandmother);she passed when I was 10;I used to see her most weekends and adored her.My DD's middle name is a shortened version of her name.

My last great grandparent died 3 days after I was born so we overlapped but I never knew her.

I had kids in the noughties,
I was born in the late 60s.
My parents were born in the 1920s and in their late teens before the end of WW2. (My Dad was just old enough to join up in the late stages.)
My grandparents were born in the 1890s so old enough to serve in WW1.
My great grandparents were born between 1849 and 1871.
Probably the difference comes because I'm the youngest of my siblings and my parents were in their 40s when I was born, but also there are some huge families in my family tree with children being born over a couple of decades. One of my GGMs had 9 children over 22 years if I recall rightly. The eldest couple of them had children of their own before the youngest sibling was born, so the generations get a bit mixed up. Some of the censuses make quite confusing reading!

My grandmother's parents died just after I started secondary school so I have memories of them. My grandfather was a teenager when Queen Victoria died and served in WW1. My DC find it amazing that I knew 3 actual Victorians. My younger sister became a great aunt shortly after I had my first child.

Dave Gorman did a really good programme about how complex multigenerational families can get using Mick Jagger's family as an example.

Really interesting thread. I didn’t know my Great Grandparents, they were all born in the second half of the 1800s. I’m 51. But my mother was born in 1950 to an almost 40 year old mother, who herself was the youngest of 22 children (one father, but 11 each of two mothers)

I forgot to mention that my paternal great grandmother (mentioned above) died at 104 years of age. Not sure how with it she was, because I was only little.
Her daughter (my darling grandmother) “only” lived to 96. My eldest is named after her and she died when my eldest was 10 months old. They are so much alike in temperament and looks, it’s spooky. My GM wanted to make it to 100yrs so she could be interviewed on the telly and attribute her longevity to having smoked for over 80 years. 🤭
On my DM’s side, my great aunt just died at 106. She was almost blind, but lived independently and played poker a couple of nights a week, betting for money. She died because she decided to climb up on a table to change a lightbulb, fell off a broke her hip.
Seems if you’re a woman, not a smoker and you’re feisty, you live forever in my family.

My maternal great grandparents were an integral part of my life. My GGrandad passed when I was 20 and GGM passed when I was nearly 31 ( a month before my birthday and 2 before my first child). I miss them both immensely- both strong feisty characters with great morals. GGM taught me how to bake. I am sad they didn't meet my kids as they would have adored them , and I'm sad that my grandad didn't meet my DH as they are very similar.
My nanna (mums mum) died 8 years ago and she is the one I'm still grieving. I lived with her till I was 5 (with my mum) and she was just the best person. My grandad is still here but haven't seen him for a long time as we don't live in the UK. My stepdads grandmothers were both on the scene and they were nice people I just didn't have the relationship with them that I had with mine. Was low contact with his mum as she was not a nice person.

my GGP died before i was born in 1965 but im 56 now and have a living GP of 104. So DD14 has a GGP

Both of my great grandmothers were alive when I was born. My maternal ggm died when I was 4 and my paternal ggm died when I was 12.

I met 3 of them. All born in 1870/80's.

I only ever knew one grandparent. He was awesome. All my other grandparents died fairly young. I think that's fairly normal for my generation (1970s) if working class - occupational hazard. I've never thought further back than that really. I know they were in two different countries, none of them in England.

My great grandparents I have no clue about, just to be clear. They didn't live long at all. I think that's normal.

This is a weird thread.

My great grandmother (mums nan) was a fabulous woman.
I remember her - 'little nanny' but she died when I was about 7. She used to keep her money under her mattress, she didn't trust banks! London. I have a photo of her from my mum and dads wedding.
My great grandfather (grandads father) was a Chelsea Pensioner and wasn't a nice man. I met him once.
My mum is now a fantastic great grandmother as she had my sister at 22, my sister had her son at 23 and he became a father at 23. I didn't have children until my 30s so doubt mine will have great grandparents.

My aunt is 84 and has 26 great grandchildren and another on the way!

I knew both my great grandparents on my Mum's side. I can't remember how old I was when DGGF passed away but I was about 9 when DGGM died. We didn't live near DGP's but visited a few times a year and would always see DGGP's for a short time then. I don't remember much except always being given money when we left.

I met both my great grandmothers. All my grandparents are still alive, so my children have met all of theirs.

I knew my great grandpa, my maternal grandfather's father. He was a station master in Stoke on trent, he was 92 when he died, can't remember how old I was.
I knew my great nanna, my maternal grandmother's mother. She used to own a posh hotel in london. She was living in a nursing home run by nuns and had mental health issues. She was in her 90's when she died and I was 12.
Every other great grandparent was long dead before I was born.

My grandmother was 72 years older than me and the only grandparent alive when I was born. My great grandparents were born in the 1870s

No, because:
Grandma 1 was born in Liverpool, ran away from home at 17 to leave an abusive childhood. Never spoke to her family again. Lied about her age and got into nursing and found herself in North Africa for the last two years of the war. Met my grandfather there, got married in 1945 in the post war chaos and moved to Australia. Good news is she lived a very long and happy life here.

Grandpa 1’s parents died 20 years before I was born. My dad was still a teenager.

Grandma 2’s mother died in childbirth in the early 1920’s with younger brother who also didn’t survive. Her husband, my great grandpa, dumped his living children, including my 5 year old grandma, with his parents to raise and moved interstate to never be seen again (he did send money though). He got remarried and had more children.

Grandpa 2’s parents had him very late in life and were long dead when I arrived. They were by all accounts very repressed and distant and my mum said they never touched her in any way and spoke to her in the third person. My grandpa was a challenging person to live with due to his childhood. He never, ever hugged his children and would comfort them with words only although mum says she knew he loved her.

I thought this too. My grandparents were the youngest children by a very large age gap so that explains why I never knew my great grandparents (only met one but barely remember her). I’m pregnant and in my mid-20s. My parents had my sibling and I in their early-mid 20s. My grandparents had my parents in their 20s too. This means my dc will know their great grandparents.