I shook hands with Richard Nixon and I got hugged by Elizabeth Montgomery.
My dad served under General Patton in WW2.
My maternal grandmother knew Wyatt Earp when she was a young girl.
My paternal great-great-grandfather was the “diarist of the Texas Revolution” and knew Sam Houston.
I like the second part of that.
I never met the guy, but I’m related to Herbert Hoover. I’m not sure if I’m related to J. Edgar.
There’s a legend that my mother’s side of the family is related to Jimmy Hoffa. One day I’m going to have to track that down once and for all.
Just about everybody I knew at Jesus College, Oxford who’d been there for some time knew the UK PM Harold Wilson, who obviously knew just about every other major historical figure of his time. Wilson was a graduate of Jesus College and came back often after his retirement from political life. My ex-wife was a graduate of Somerville College, and I met a couple lifers from there who knew Margaret Thatcher from her days as a student. Lastly, tygre was at a party in 1997 welcoming the freshman class of the Illinois State Senate, because a relative was one of them. Another one of them was Barack Obama. So, between those three, I’m three degrees of separation between just about every major world political figure since about 1950. And if that weren’t enough my college advisor at Jesus was Niall Ferguson, who knows pretty much everyone who’s everyone in politics these days.
Of course all this goes to show you is that political ties don’t mean anything unless you make something of them.
I’m never sure whether you should count great relatives as one degree or whether you should count in steps according to actual physical meetings eg if you knew your Grandfather/mother who knew their own father that’s two steps. At any rate I’m impressed.
I know someone whose ancestor was also a signatory and he inherited his ancestor’s copy as a direct male descendant.
If the criteria for Obama being one of your degrees is that you were in the same room with him and maybe shook his hand, there are tens of thousands of people who could make that same claim.
I have some very close links to dead celebrities by way of direct links to living celebrities, then. By your definition, I’ll assume that knowing someone well enough that they greet you by name when you encounter them counts as a link – or that they have your phone number in their phone.
I’ve worked with several politicians that would count, and I’m sure they’d connect me directly to a deep pool of political figures. For example, I spent time with Montana’s representative and both senators when I owned a newspaper, which puts me two steps from every U.S. President and Senator who has died since those guys took office decades ago, which probably means three steps from almost every world leader of that era.
On the tech side, I worked a lot with highly-placed people and founders in many of the companies involved in the microcomputer revolution of the 70s and 80s. I’m two steps from Steve Jobs, which means three steps from half the music industry.
Being in the book industry, there aren’t a whole lot of major literary figures of the 20th century I couldn’t get to in two or three steps.
I and my fellow college roommates socialized with President Eisenhower’s brother Milton on 4 separate occasions, two at his home, and two in our student ghetto apartment (including us throwing him an 80th birthday party there.) Each event consisted of from 5 to 10 people. He also posed with us at our graduation, in front of the library named after him.
So that’s 2 degrees of separation from someone famous for winning WW II and being a US president.
OK then, I’ll go a little bit more circumlocutial. My stepkids’ great-uncle was Obama’s best friend in the State Senate, and taught him how to play golf and poker. I don’t know how many degrees that puts me from him, but that’s got to be something.
Cool! For those who don’t know, Acheson was Truman’s Secretary of State.
My great-great-uncle was shot and killed in action while under Sherman’s command at the Battle of New Hope Church, May 25, 1864, before Atlanta fell and Sherman began the March to the Sea.
My paternal grandfather was a law school classmate of Alger Hiss (and believed to the end of his days that Hiss was innocent) and Erwin Griswold, who served as LBJ’s and Nixon’s Solicitor General (top lawyer before the Supreme Court). I met Griswold myself many years later, but never Hiss.
Adm. William “Bull” Halsey married into my mom’s family but isn’t a blood relative.
My mom also met Eleanor Roosevelt in the 1950s, when the former First Lady visited my grandparents in Elizabeth, N.J. My mother also saw Albert Einstein bicycling around Princeton around then, but never spoke to him because she “didn’t want to bother him.”
My dad dated Judi Dench, then an obscure English provincial actress, in the early 1950s.
I met President Obama, and smooched and got a hug from the First Lady, not long ago, so that connects me to a bunch of historic figures, I guess: In which I meet the President and smooch the First Lady - Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share - Straight Dope Message Board
I met Jackie Onassis at a party once; we chatted for a few minutes as neither of us knew many people there.
I’ve been told that my great grandfather went to the South Pole with Roald Amundsen.
My paternal grandfather, who died before I was born, was an uncredited stuntman/extra in a movie starring Ronald Regan, Sergeant Murphy (1938).
The father of a very close friend of mine served as a seaman on the protected cruiser Olympia. Unfortunately that was in WWI, so I can’t claim that he knew Admiral Dewey or Captain Gridley. But the Olympia? - that should count for something.
If he was still aboard the Olympia in 1921, he might’ve been there when the ship brought the Unknown Soldier back from France.
My mom worked with Ed Broadbent, NDP MP from Oshawa-Whitby, in the 1970s. We had dinner at his apartment once when I was a teenager. (This is where I discovered I hated French onion soup and liked Astérix books).
Ed Broadbent would have met all sorts of people, including various Canadian prime ministers. I believe he’s still alive, though no longer an active MP.
So via that route, I’m three steps away from Pierre Trudeau, and four steps away from everyone from Fidel Castro to Richard Nixon. And, coming down the other side of the mountain (so to speak), maybe five or six steps away from various Dopers! 
No degrees of separation: I am Napoleon Bonaparte.
On my father’s side, I am the great-great-grandson of Col. William Fairfax Gray, the diarist of the Texas Revolution. That’s three degrees, and through him, my fourth degree is Gen. Sam Houston.
In addition, my paternal grandmother (2 degrees) knew Wyatt Earp (3rd Degree).
I shook hands with Richard Nixon when he was VP.
Mary Martin was my “date” for 30 minutes. (Actually I was her escort/bodyguard.) I guess that puts me two degrees from quite a few celebrities.
I was warned to be polite, bow and say nothing to the Japanese Prince (because he didn’t speak English), let alone he was royalty. Instead, he came up to me, shook my hand (Without gloves! Shock Horror!) and we had a great conversation. He was educated in America and spoke perfect English.
F. James Sensenbrenner tried to embarrass me on the floor of the Wisconsin Senate. He was jealous of my tie. Now he’s just an asshole in Congress.
I saved the life of Buffalo Bill Cody’s grandson. Food poisoning. However, the 45-minute ride in the dead of night to Lake Hospital in Yellowstone National Park (wary of bison on the road) in the back of the ambulance was horrendous. We had to keep the windows closed (it was cold outside) and almost choked to death ourselves because his farts were that bad.
I met Australian PM Paul Keating and asked him why he just lied to everyone who just heard his speech. He caught my American accent and realized he knew that I knew he had been found out. I guess that takes me two degrees to much of the Australian political “elite.” 
I met Jerry Penacoli several times. That makes me one degree away from that gerbil.
Quite by happenstance Doris Tate had a long, quiet conversation. She was the mother of actress Sharon Tate. I guess I’m a couple of degrees to …
So that means you’re five steps away from me! 
Two or three, depending on how you count. One of my great aunts lead the suffrage movement in Texas and won women the right to vote in primaries three years before the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified. This was in the Solid South, and a vote in the Democratic primary was as good as a vote in the general election.
After this, she worked for national suffrage and helped organize the National League of Women Voters. In 1927, she ran as a liberal candidate for the US Senate, and in 1944, she ran for governor, came in second and kept Coke Stevenson, the incumbent governor, from sneaking an anti-New Deal delegation into the national convention.
That, and my sister went on a few dates with Dick Smothers, of the Smothers Brothers.