I met people from this century, last century and even the one before that. How about you?

[GreenWave]

Three centuries!

Hooray for great, great, great grandmas!

[Ocelot II]

1. My grandmother was born in 1882, died in 1980,

and I knew her very well. Most people I know are were born in the 20th century, know a few kids born in the 21st.

[wnylib]

34. Same here. 19th century grandparents,

20th century parents and self, and there are lots of children around today who are 21st century.

Also neat, IMO, is how family stories carry you across centuries and generations.

My father told me that his grandmother told him about her mother (my gg-grandmother) seeing Abe Lincoln on his campaign for his second term when his train stopped in town for him to speak.

[Leghorn21]

2. Ain't it cool, Green!?! I wish I'd paid more attention as a youngster, but yeah, my grandparents

were ALL born in the late 1800s (I’m 72)…I would have peppered them all with endless questions had I been a more alert toddler, but AH WELL!!

[GreenWave]

11. I hear you.

My grandfather told everybody war stories and I should have paid better attention but wanted to throw bottle caps outside from their beer bottles.

[Leghorn21]

15. Yes, we mustn't beat ourselves up for not listening better, Green - as children, we had important

duties to attend to!! Bottle caps, catching fireflies, catching poison ivy - we were BUSY, I tells ya!!

[haele]

3. Same here. Grandpappy, Great Grandma and a couple Great-Great Aunts.

Great-Grandma lived to 102, the others into their late 90's.
Birth years - 1884, 1892, 1894, and 1898.

Haele.

[Lithos]

4. If you are over the age of 40 - that is probably a likely thing

Got to meet two of my great grand fathers - one was born in the late 1870's and the other was early 1880s. (Can't remember off the top of my head).

Myself I am a little older and have met veterans of the following wars and campaigns:

Spanish American
Phillippines
Indian
World War 1
Bonus Army riot
World War 2
Korean
Vietnam
Gulf War
Panama
Kosovo
Iraq War
Afghanistan

The only major gaps being Mexican Invasion (Pancho Villa), China/Boxer Rebellion and the Dominican Republic

Yourself?

[GreenWave]

12. That is quite a list there.

I had to look up the Bonus Army Riot and if the article was correct they were attacked by the likes of IKE, MacArthur and Patton?? It had what I call a vague sentence.

By Indians is that Native American?

As I understood the Mexico situation it was oil companies paying factions $. Pancho Villa was actually Hollywood's first superstar. He would tell the film crew what he was going to do so they could film it. But the last film crew was not from Hollywood. They had Villa shot to death in his car.

But no, I did not have the pleasure of meeting lots of veterans.

[cachukis]

5. Actually, when you think about it, you may have heard stories about

your grandparents', grandparents. I did. They were born in the 1850's. You can be a link to your grandchildren's relationship with a 200 year connection.

[GreenWave]

8. And an amazing one.

Someone in their ripest years say 95+ could have met someone as a kid that spoke to George Washington and told us about it as kids! in the 1950's.

Does my math work? 1960 say at age 5 the 95 year old speaks to us about when he was a kid also age 5 1865 talked to someone older than 70 to get to G. Washington's living years through last 1790's. It is possible.

Amazing.

[soldierant]

19. The genealogy is a bit hazy

But I think it was my paternal grandfather's grandfather who was the first generation American in that line and who served the Union in the Civil War. He joined with some drinking buddy veterans who had all served together in Europe. His wife was apset that he joined and left him, but they reconciled afterwards. But that's it. No war stories

It's on my mother's side that I'd really love to know. Her father's father was the first generation, and came with all but one of his children. In the process he changed his (and the children's ) surnames to one that means "trouble" or "sorrow." Mom did know the left-behind brother's name, but nothing else about him - the family never spoke of him. It all sounds like a successfully buried scandal. But that is only back to my grandfather's father, snd sketchy at that. I was told the original family name, but never saw it writtn, and there are multiple ways to spell it.

[cachukis]

20. Love the story and that's the point. The accuracy is no doubt off,

but we can learn from that aspect. It challenges lore, but we translate lore into our own lives.
My grandfather told me about how the elders in his family would climb to the top of Gibraltar to fly kites. They would pound a stake into the ground and use it as a control to keep these large kites from flying away.
One time a young lad wanted to take charge and was told no by his father as he was too small to handle the pull. The boy loosed the rope and was yanked off the mountain and lost to view within minutes over the straits. My grandfather said he witnessed this event, but I was so young I couldn't tell if it was a parable or not.
This is how myth develops. I still tell this story to my grandkids and others who will listen.
We are losing this passage of tales with social media.
I am saddened.

[wnylib]

35. See my #34 earlier in this thread on the same topic.

[dchill]

6. That's gonna happen if you were born mid-century. Like me.

[GreenWave]

9. I think there are a lot of us.

The other thing is how many humans did it take to make us?
2 parents
4 grandparents
8 great grand parents.

Whew, seems like it will be into the thousands.

[dchill]

10. Turns out to be very common.

[yellowdogintexas]

7. three centuries here also:

my great grandmother was born in 1875

my mom's father was born in 1891, and his brother & sister were older;

my dad's mother was the next youngest of 7 (born in 1902) so all of her siblings but one were from the 1800s

I know a number of young folks born since 2000 - all ages from 23 down to babies. (including my granddaughter and one of my son in law's sisters)

I can't even begin to number all the people I knew growing up who were born before 1900. It's possible some of them were probably children during the Civil War.

[Cartoonist]

13. My grandfather has seen some changes

From being able to shoe a horse, WWI, to landing on the moon (not him personally).

[Jilly_in_VA]

14. Me too

My maternal grandfather, who was born in 1878, and my paternal grandparents, born in 1884 and 1885 respectively, I knew well. My maternal grandmother, born in 1882, I knew less well because she began her slide into poor health and multi-infarct dementia when I was probably around 8. Paternal grandfather died in 1961 and I grieved him sorely because I had been "grandpa's girl" for a long time. Maternal grandfather died in 1966 after a long and productive life. i had not seen him since I was probably about 14 due to a lot of circumstances. My paternal grandmother lived until 1981, long enough to see all of my children, her first great-grand-children. I marveled that she had lived from horse and buggy days through women getting the right to vote to seeing men on the moon. She was a tough, amazing woman and I loved her dearly. My parents were born in 1918 and 1919 respectively, and my late ex and myself were war babies, 1943 and 1944. Spousal unit is a mere baby, born 1952. My own grandchildren started arriving in 1999 and the last one came in 2018. Great-grands are now coming, with the first two years ago and the second a week ago. I am blessed.

[Bayard]

16. I don't know what year she was born,

But I remember my great-grandmother, who lived to 101. She was an itty bitty thing.

My grandfather fought in WWI. I inherited his large sepia-toned photo in Army uniform, and his heavy wool army blanket. He told my brother his unit was fighting waist-deep in water in the Argonne Forest.

[whathehell]

17. Yes, my grandparents on both sides

of my family were born in the late 19th century, as was one set of great grandparents that I also knew.

[Fla Dem]

18. All four of my grandparents were born in the 1800's. My parents in the 1900'S

Last edited Thu Aug 17, 2023, 11:51 PM - Edit history (1)

And a number of young people in the family are Gen Z'ers (born in the 2000's).

[doc03]

21. One of our neighbors was in his late 90s back in the 1950s.

He used to talk about our town back when he was young. What is now US 250 was a dirt road back then, we had a stage depot, hotel, a general mercantile and a livery stable. There was a settlement near here that was totally wiped out from cholera. Back in the late 1800s there were dozens of oil wells here. We have a mall now called Dollar General.
My grandfather was born in 1864 but he died before I was born.

[yardwork]

22. Same here!

I met a grandfather and a great-grandmother who had been born in the 19th century, and several others as well.

My parents, two of my children and I were all 20th century babies.

[XanaDUer2]

23. Me too nt

[Elessar Zappa]

24. I probably saw people from the 19th century when I was very young.

I was born in 1983.

[Mr.Bill]

25. All four of my grandparents were born in the 1800s.

On my paternal side, my great grandfather arrived in the USA in 1852. I am only the third generation born here.

In other trivia, I tended bar at a country club nearby in 1999. I realized recently that I am the only living person who tended bar there in the 20th century. I was also the last one to tend bar there in the 20th century since I worked on Millenial New Year's Eve.

[Rhiannon12866]

26. My great grandfather was born in 1874, we overlapped by 1 year

However, my second grade teacher was born in 1878 and I remember her! My class was her last before retirement - and she was also principal of the school, small town. She died in the early '80s at 105 - she was old enough to be my grandmother's mother.

[Marthe48]

27. I have

I remember meeting my paternal great-grandmother once. She was probably born in the 1870s, died around 1955. Knew my paternal Gram, my maternal grandfather, also at least one great aunt and uncle, all born in the 1890s. Then my parents, aunts and uncles, parents-in-law, and my husbands aunts and uncles, all born in the teens, 20s and early 30s of the 20th century, all of the cousins born mid 20th century. Then my great nieces, and nephews, the ones born after 2000.

My friend and I were talking the other day, mentioned our lives spanning decades, centuries and millenia.

[First Speaker]

28. When I was a little boy (I was born in 1953) I met a very old man...

...who remembered the Civil War. And when *he* was a little boy, he met an old man who had been an eyewitness to the battle of Concord Bridge. Our country isn't very old, in human terms...

[sakabatou]

29. I've only met people from this century and the last.

[Raine]

30. Me too, my grandfather was born in 1880 and my parents, myself as most of my family in the 20th

century and now some of my young cousins in the 21 century.

[malthaussen]

31. Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr personally knew...

... both John Quincy Adams and Algar Hiss. One lifetime can span a lot of years.

[IrishAfricanAmerican]

32. Me too!

[Emile]

33. Same as you. My grandparents were born in the 1880's.