My maternal grandmother is an award winning Canadian author. (For privacy reasons I'd rather not give her name.) She was also president of the Canadian Authors Union for several years, and to this day she tours and lectures and her books are in print all over the world. Not bad for an 82 year old.

As for the distant past... hm. My maternal grandfather's family crest was honored with the Fleur de Lies emblem after saving the life of a French Prince a couple hundred years ago. Extra significant because we are not French! Not quite sure about the story behind that one off the top of my head, but despite that we are not French, we still have the honorific emblem on the coat of arms.

My maternal family's side is full of people who are obsessed about researching our family tree. They've thus far tracked it back to 1000AD, and they are pushing to go back further.

Sadly, my father's side has a murky history due to a house fire when he was 13 that claimed all the pictures and records brought over from Ireland. The oldest surviving member of his grandfather's generation is a 97 year old Nun who has developed alzheimer's in the past few years. I guess there are some things we will never know.