If they were alive today, they’d be remarkably old.
My mother’s mother’s father was, I was told, a big, strong man. That’s all I know about my mother’s side.
My father’s father worked for his future wife’s father (that’s how my grandfather met my grandmother.) That’s all I know about my father’s side.
I just did a quick look and my great-grandparents were born between 1870 and 1893. They died between 1904 and 1973.
I never met any of my great grandparents, and both of my mother’s parents died before she was grown. I know a fair bit about my father’s side. Going back by Y chromosomes, my direct ancestor came to American in 1640 from England.
I didn’t personally know any of my great grandparents. I knew my mom’s grandmother (her mom’s mom) lived with the family and helped to raise the kids while my grandmother was a washerwoman. She (ggm) was run over by a trolley car in Columbus Ohio when my mom was in her early teens.
I didn’t know anything else until I started doing some genealogical research. The trolley car great grandmother’s husband (my great grandfather) died in a coal mining accident – killed by a pickax. They were both immigrants, so they’re the only ones I know about on that side. They came over when my grandmother was young enough that she came with her family, so her parents (my great grandparents) came to the US. My grandfather was an adult when he emigrated, and none of his family came over.
My dad’s parents got divorced around the time he and my mom married. I never met that grandfather and certainly never met his parents. Knew nothing about them. My dad’s mom’s mom was widowed young, so obviously I never knew that great grandfather. I only knew about that great grandmother because she was first cousin to the poet/writer Robinson Jeffers. She died a few years before my parents met.
I knew one, she died at 96 when I was 11.
I have great-grandfather’s Elgin pocket watch (and warranty) and am named after him.
I also own a cap-and-ball rifle that belonged to his father, my 2nd great-grandfather.
A cousin has a small ceramic cup that was given to his 3rd great-grandmother in 1818 when she was 4.
Not a great deal. They all passed before I was old enough to recognize who they were and there isn’t a whole heck of a lot of documentary evidence.
Like one of Qadgop’s ancestors, both sets of my paternal great-grandparents emigrated separately from Habsburg Croatia just prior to WW I (c1910-1912). In their case though they were Croatian Serbs who all settled in the same general vicinity (as ethnic immigrant communities are wont to do) in rural and small town Western Pennsylvania. One set were small-scale country farmers who acquired a section or two and grew crops and kept a few cows. The other set were townies who mined coal and worked in the early factories (they also generally had the standard subsistence garden plots and at times kept chickens).
On my mother’s side it is more confused. One was a German immigrant who arrived just a little earlier than my Serbian ancestors. One (my mother’s paternal grandfather) was an Anglo-Welsh share-cropper originally from Mississippi who later in life moved to Maryland with a sibling or two and raised a very large brood, the males of which mostly went into assorted law enforcement careers. The other couple are even more vague, including ethnicity. I’ve heard a half dozen speculations. But basically entirely or largely standard American WASP mutts 
.
Mama Mac, My dad’s mom’s mom, was alive until I was an 8th grader in junior high school, and I saw her at least once a year at Christmas and usually more often than that. She was a quiet and very tiny woman. I only later learned how formidable she was. Her husband had died in 1930 from rheumatoid arthritis complications when he was only 45, and she’d finished raising four girls and a boy on her own in rural Georgia. The youngest kid was 10 at that time, although my grandma, the oldest, was 21. Her children were all pretty much in awe of her, although she didn’t act like a commanding authority when I knew her.
Big Daddy, my dad’s dad’s dad, died in 1966, and I have distant memories of being dragged, as a 7 year old, to a hospital where some old man was in a bed, and my dad’s explanation of why we were bringing chewing gum and candy to him (“At his age, he doesn’t need games or clothes or anything else, except a few simple things that get used up”). Problem is, I remember being taken to many such old distant relative’s bedside on similar missions so I can’t swear that I recall Big Daddy.
He was a farmer, the last in his line to live his life that way, as my granddad, his son, ended up moving into town and being a police lieutenant. His wife, called Big Mama in our family, had seven children and a batch of siblings and cooked up monstrously large meals to feed the hordes. She died when I was two and I definitely have no memory of her.
My mom’s dad’s parents both died before I was born, his dad way the heck back in 1914 and Grandpa’s mom in 1953. Grandpa was only 8 when his dad died so I didn’t get many tales about him. I know Grandpa worked through the depression as the only employed person in the family and supported the rest of them as best he could. I got the impression his mom was pretty worn out by the time he came of age.
My mom’s mom’s dad died when a tree fell on him while he was felling some trees on a farm; he was 62 so not a young man, and she grew up knowing him up through early adulthood. She said he supported her going to nursing school and she became one of the first educated people in either branch of my family. Grandma’s mom lived until a few years before I was born. I wish I knew more about her, to be honest, but Grandma didn’t talk about her as much. But the family she was a part of has always had large boisterous family reunions and stay close and I get the impression that she was well-regarded. These great-grands were also farming folks, and more successful at it than some of my other ancestors, enough so to countenance sending their daughter to school to become a nurse at any rate.
I had the same amount of each: three.
Interestingly, I only had three living grandparents because my paternal grandmother picked up staph pneumonia while visiting her father in the hospital - he lived until I was two or three after recovering from his unrelated ailment, she didn’t 
I don’t remember the one who died when I was a toddler, but my Mom’s paternal grandparents lived until I was 11 (great-grampy) and a month shy of 19 (great-grammy). So, I know a fair amount about the two of them.
As for the others, my parents told us stories about my mom’s maternal grandparents, and dad his other grandfather. I really don’t recall him mentioning either of his grandmothers.
I don’t know all that much; I know my paternal great grandparents came to the US from what today would be the Czech Republic, at the time part of the Austrio-Hungarian Empire, circa 1910. They settled in Adams, Wisconsin, and apparently were active members of the local Bohemian Hall.
I’m a genealogist, so yes, though I only met one of them in person and he was on his way into dementia by the time I was a thinking individual.
My great-grandfather went “missing” in early '45 after he refused to hand over food to the SS (according to Grandpa’s tales – the “missing” part is certainly true).
His wife lived until I was 4; I have distant memories of her.
My maternal great-grandparents were all refugees from Lower Silesia. My grandma is still alive and tells the occasional story about them. Both g-grandmothers were alive when I was born, but died before I turned 1.
The fourth set of g-grandparents was from the Sarre area. After grandma arrived in our region (also a war-related displacement), there hasn’t been much in-person contact. I never saw her mom although she lived the longest of all g-grandparents (until 1987 IIRC).
I barely know anything about my grandparents, let alone my great-grandparents.
Yeah; it’s a bit easier when they all stayed put for generations.
I think I never met any of them- one GGM died age 99, around the time I was born, but I think shortly before. I know nothing at all about her husband, despite hearing lots of stories about her from my great-aunt, who lived with us for years. From what I know about her, he may have just hid in the shed out of his wife’s way most of the time- the phrase ‘terrifying old dragon’ has been used. Grandma had to resort to trickery in order to get Grandpa away from his mother long enough to inform him that he now had a girlfriend (Grandma was not terrifying, she was sweet, by all accounts, he was just slow on the uptake- they both died before I can remember). That side were all Lancashire mill workers.
On the other side, they were all long gone before I was born, except one Grandpa’s far younger step-mother, who I don’t remember. She was brought up in an orphanage, but lied about her background (she had a sister who was both nicer and far more honest, who she pretended didn’t exist, so some of the lies came out). Her husband- my GGP- was reputedly 6’6" and regularly wore a top hat- I’ve seen pictures, and I suspect that may have been Tinder measurements, but he certainly was very tall, especially for the era. He was a gentleman farmer- the farm’s still in the family, I’ve been there a few times, and there’s a graveyard which has multiple generations of the family in down the road.
My other GGP on that parent’s side was a dentist (my great-uncle has kept some of his equipment), I don’t know much about GGM on that side, but I’ve seen pictures. They had family property on the Isle of Man, and spent a fair bit of time there. According to family legend, as a youth, he was planning to catch what turned out to be the final voyage of the SS Ellan Vannin but got sidetracked looking for his pocketwatch and missed the boat.
Judging by the responses, I may be in the minority as one who never even gave them a thought.
I know a good bit on my mother’s side, but I might have difficulty sorting out which bits I know go with which great-grandparents, or possibly with other relatives of the same generation. For instance, I know that one of my great-grandmothers had a loom that spanned her entire attic, a design which my mother adapted for a homemade loom of her own, but I’m not sure if that was Gramma’s mother or Grampap’s.
I also know some stories about my mother’s father’s mother’s father (i.e., my great-great-grandfather), because my mother’s father included them in his own memoirs, and I know that it must have been his mother’s father specifically because he gave his full name, with a different surname than his own. He was a fabulously strong man, who once won a 200 pound barrel of flour for his wife on a bet, by picking it up one-handed and carrying it home that way from the store. And he died on the Home Front in WWI, when he was patrolling a railway tunnel for saboteurs, and got hit by a train.
Oh, I also know some about my father’s mother’s father. He was an immigrant from Italy to the US. Unlike many immigrants, who came from rural areas in the Old Country to New World cities, he was from The Eternal City, Rome itself, and came in search of a rural life. He was a baker. My mom once asked him what his notion of “pizza” was, and he answered “Bread with oil and little fishies”.
I know more than I need to about my mom’s side of the family. She loves genealogy (well, her genealogy), and will interject old family tales into many conversations. Someone will mention Black Panther and she’ll say “You DO know that your great-great grandfather once shot a panther on his way to school… oh, have I told you about that?” (this is met with a chorus of “Yes!” “Oh, all right…[sigh]…but he did! I just think it’s fascinating. In fact, he carried a rifle just for that purpose. And sure enough, one day…”
So I do know that my great grandad would get my mom and her brother out of bed, take them down to the pharmacy he owned, and make them chocolate malts at the soda fountain.
My mother’s mother’s parents were both alive when I was born. Mom’s grandma died within a few months of my birth, her grandfather, Burt, lived until I was like 5-6. Our house’s basement could be converted to an apartment, and so Mom & Dad fixed it up as Burt neared the end of his life and he lived down there for a few years. I remember little about him. Grandma said he was a great man: kind and loving, a well-respected lay minister and high school principal. He was also a man of his time, and he favored his one son (Grandma’s brother) over his daughters (Grandma and Aunt Jean), and Grandma never forgave him for that.
My father’s mother’s parents were both also alive when I was born. Celia even babysat me. I remember very little of her beyond her obsession with going to the funeral home on the daily (or what it seemed to my five-year-old brain). Her husband, I forget his name, was a giant ass. He died a few years later and literally all I remember of him is is not-infrequent yelling about this or that.
I only know of one of my great grand parents from my mothers side and only because he (and his son) were 100% indigenous peoples from Mexico, so they made it in the family lore. He was from the Zacateca region of Mexico and my uncle told me he was from the Wahochi tribe, I have not been able to find any information on the specific tribe but I imagine that they were the people that the Aztecs painted blue and scarified to the gods to ensure a bountiful harvest by chopping there heads of and letting it roll down the stairs.
On my mother’s side – Great grandparents came from Russia in 1917 after the revolution. They left Ellis Island with a Mc_____ Irish name. Great grandmother died of the Spanish flu shortly after coming to the USA. Great grandfather wore a big gold earring and had a big handlebar mustache; he worked in the coal mines of PA and died young of Black Lung. That is all I know about them.
On my father’s side – I knew my father’s mother’s mother when I was a kid; only thing I remember about her was that when she was very old and flaky they put a padlock on her attic door so she wouldn’t get lost up there – so she chopped down the door with an ax. I know my great grandfather came to this country with some land from the William Penn deals and some the land is still in the family; used as a remote hunting / fishing area with a rustic off-grid cabin, not suitable for any other use-- accessible only by a dirt road that washes out every spring – I haven’t been there since I was a teen. My family name grandfather split from the family due to some sort of hillbilly feud and I know nothing about the many relatives now spread across the country.
A cousin did some research into the family name, traced them from England through Germany, lost the trail but they didn’t appear to be from Germany, found references to them in the 1600s being known as “the Swiss”.