Do most people get to know only up to their grandparents?

I have a cousin whose daughter when born had five living great grandparents!

I know the names of all my great grandparents, although all were long gone before my mother was born.  Have not followed every branch of the family trees, but I was somewhat bemused to find I have two sets of 4X great grandparents, one in Massachusetts and one in the Austrian Tyrol, who each had 17 children.  And both fathers were revolutionaries.

I knew my step-great grandmother because she was the only great-grandparent who was still alive when I was growing up. Being able to know your great-grandparents depends on several factors: 1) Being alive at the same time; 2) living close enough to be able to spend time together; and 3) being in a family with close ties so that you can get together on special occasions or when vacationing in the area. Some families have their children at young ages (sometimes while in high school), so the generations are close together. Other families (such as mine) have their children later, so the older generations can be quite a bit older.