Four Degrees of Separation

Randy Seaver offered the following Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge:

Using your ancestral lines, how far back in time can you go with FOUR degrees of separation? That means “you knew an ancestor, who knew another ancestor, who knew another ancestor, who knew another ancestor.” When was that fourth ancestor born?

That's not an easy challenge, for my oldest grandparent, my maternal grandfather, was born when all his grandparents had already died, so I had to pick another grandparent. With my paternal grandfather I had the same issue. Then I stumbled upon missing ancestors because I have a lot of ancestors in places with missing baptism records like Hendrik-Ido-Ambacht, Sint-Anthoniepolder, Wieldrecht and 's-Gravendeel, all in Holland. 

W.C. Zijderveld
(1892-1976)

I also found out that to establish this line, and make sure they knew each other, I had to turn the definition around into "that ancestor knew that descendant" for a baby or toddler may not remember someone.

Here is my line:

1. I knew my maternal grandmother Willempje Cornelia Zijderveld (1892-1976).
2. She knew her maternal grandmother Adriana de Sterke (1829-1917).
3. Adriana knew her paternal grandfather Pieter de Sterke (1765-1842).
4. His double grandmother Lijsbet Kevers (1703-1767) knew him. Pieter was Lijsbeth's grandson both through her daughter Maria de Sterke (1730-1806) and her son David de Sterke (1733-1797). 

They were all born in Dordrecht in Holland.

I want to thank Randy Seaver and Yvette Hoitink for the inspiration.