lived until I was in middle school.  She was 96 when she died.  My maternal grandfather (her son) is now 87, and I believe one among 10 living out of her 12 total offspring.  I hope I got those longevity genes in the DNA crapshoot.

I had other great-grandparents alive when I was born, but they were my paternal grandmother's adopted parents.  No DNA lottery there.

and I knew 4 of 8!!!

My grandma Smith lived to 106, outliving all three sons.  My grandpa Armstrong passed away at 96.

My maternal grandmother remarried at the age of 83, and she and my step-grandfather just celebrated their tenth anniversary!

He lived from 1865-1959. Have a handwritten letter from him to me dated 1958 and his old money wallet.  We also have a 250-page typed manuscript he dictated to his daughter regarding his lifetime memories and his signed tickets to the 1893 Chicago Columbian Exposition. Transportation-wise, the manuscript covers horse-drawn buggies to jet aircraft and three wars. Oftentimes I get the letter or manuscript out and read them for inspiration.

Recently visited the Montana ranch of my maternal grandmother's parents. Was able to meet the people who own it now, have dinner with them and see the old original farmhouse. The ranch still has some wagon train ruts from a trail that paralleled the front range of the Rockies. When I stood looking out at the ranch, many aspects of my life just seemed to become much clearer. Wish I would have seen it at a much younger age.

Know nothing at all about my paternal grandparents or their ancestors, but that story is for another place and time.

Exploring your ancestors tells you a great deal about America.

Dad's side... I don't know that either of grandma's parents were alive.  But I'm just not sure.  Could well have been--I've got that family's bible and the folks who died of natural causes were all in their 80s.  I'll have to ask Dad (who's in his mid 70s and traveling all over the world).  His dad's mom died young of some disease.  His grandfather I met when I was five--we went to see him because he was going to die (refused to have prostate surgery...).  He lived another year, I believe.

Mom's side... both on the maternal side lived to push 90. My great-grandmother died when I was in college. She loomed large in the family.... On the paternal side... I believe both died young--but have no details.  My biological grandfather went into a TB sanitarium when my mother was just two--and my grandmother never spoke of him; even though she remarried later, I suspect it was just too painful for her. However, I remember hearing from my mother that he'd been an orphan.

So at least three.  Maybe as many as five.

One of my great-grandmothers lived until 1965, four years after I was born. I was in the Philadelphia suburbs and she was in Chicago, so I never met her. She died at 87.

Fortunately, before she passed on she wrote -- in longhand -- the story of her early years in America, from her family's arrival from Ireland (against the wishes of her father, who had come to the U.S. on his own, had come to hate it, and had planned to return to Ireland before the rest of his family surprised him by showing up in Chicago to join him) until her father died in 1891. It's a harrowing tale of poverty and domestic cruelty in the Bridgeport section of Chicago, where many Irish immigrants settled when they came here in waves throughout the middle and late 1800s. I've got a photocopy of it (an aunt has the original), and it's an amazing first-hand account of just how hard life was for some of our forefathers (and mothers).

Supposedly, she continued the story beyond the part that I own, including her eventual marriage (to one of my great-grandfathers, who died in 1918) and beyond, but the rest of the manuscript seems to be lost.

I've checked most of the dates and events she described against more objective sources, such as census, Chicago Archdiocesan and immigration records, and virtually everything is confirmed.

I think I have photos of my father's great-grandparents, but even his own parents were gone by the 1970s.

And I don't remember my grandfathers. One died when I was only a few months old, the other when I was 2, so I wasn't old enough to remember them.