Early centenarians – Page 3 – Honorable Mentions

Robbie · 2023-06-06T02:02:49Z

I've always been particularly fascinated by early centenarians - the people who lived to extreme ages at a time when many of the comforts and tools we now have and use in everyday life hadn't been invented or weren't available, and the study of extreme longevity had yet to really begin. I was amazed to find a portrait of Elizabeth Gray (11 May 1748 – 2 Apr 1856) which was posted in a Facebook group. I researched her claim back in 2019 on the 110 Club; to sum up there is early and late-life evidence to support her case, and a fairly complete family tree, but in my view it's unlikely that enough mid-life evidence would exist to verify her claim with the rigor of today's cases. Nevertheless, with a family history of longevity (her mother and two of her siblings would probably also have been within the 50 oldest living people in Scotland at the time of their deaths) I personally think it's fairly likely her claim is true. Here's the portrait, drawn in November 1851 when she was 103: I started a project on researching early centenarians a few years ago but never got very far (there's no better time like the present to resurrect dormant projects..!), and to put into perspective the extremity of Elizabeth Gray's age compared to her contemporaries, here are the only three other people whose ages I was able to verify to a similar degree of confidence to reach 105 in Scotland born in the 18th century: Agnes Forrester (already verified; 4 Oct 1755 – 20 Feb 1861), 105 Isabel Morison (10 Nov 1772 – 19 Nov 1877), 105 Agnes Fleming (17 Feb 1799 – 29 Apr 1905), 106 That's not to say there weren't plenty of people claiming to be older though. 1856 also saw the deaths registered of Robert Bruce at '109', Ann Mackay at '108', and Margaret Morrison at '107'. Unfortunately, the vast majority of people of people registered as dying at centenarian ages in the 20th century are unable to be verified - many of them were people who simply never tracked their age throughout life and simply had to estimate whenever asked. If we follow Margaret Morrison, she went from '80' in 1841, to '100' in 1851, to '107' at the time of her death in 1856. A few other factors that may impact record-finding for claimed centenarians in this era include: They may have been born in a parish where baptism records were not kept or lost They may have based their current age on the age they remember being at the time of certain historical events, however memory isn't perfect and they may misremember their age, or the event in question Personal details such as maiden name, name of parents or siblings, birthplace etc may have not been recorded and lost to time, so they can't be used as parameters for searching They may have an extremely common name which makes it difficult to search for records. This is especially true for Gaelic-speaking regions at the time, where half of the population would share 10 forenames and 10 surnames. On the other hand, if someone has an uncommon name it can be much easier to find records for them. The earliest verifiable centenarian (to more archaic standards, not those of today; and almost certainly not the actual verifiable earliest centenarian) in Scotland I've found is Hugina Leslie, who was born on 15 Mar 1746 and died on 22 Apr 1846 in Cupar, Fife. She was a member of the well-attested noble family Leslie of Lindores, her brother was John Leslie (1750 – 1813), the 8th Lord Lindores and final holder of the title. I wonder what the true preponderance of centenarians worldwide was in the 19th century. As late as 1897 there were periods where there seemed to be no verifiable centenarians living in Scotland (which, admittedly, only held about 0.25% of the world's population then).

Honorable Mentions

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Beaumont

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14/02/2025 3:26 am

@sailor-haumea yes but keep in mind I’m personally only looking into centenarians from the North East of England.

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ChrisR

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14/02/2025 12:00 pm

The other interesting thing about Blaze Driver is that he lived across 3 different centuries.

I'm sure this has happened for quite a few hundred years now as the required age to achieve isn't that high (if your birth year ends in say 96-99). But we still don't know too many whose birth predates the 1700s.

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Fish

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15/02/2025 6:25 pm

Posted by: @beaumont
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four verified centenarians born before 1750

Was Margaret Turnbull debunked?

According to Durham Records Online, there was a Margaret Turnbull born in 1774 at Hunwick who may have been the Margaret Turnbull who died at Hunwick in 1776.

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Beaumont

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16/03/2025 12:31 am

Posted by: @fish
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Posted by: @beaumont
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four verified centenarians born before 1750
Was Margaret Turnbull debunked?
According to Durham Records Online, there was a Margaret Turnbull born in 1774 at Hunwick who may have been the Margaret Turnbull who died at Hunwick in 1776.

I haven't been able to reach a conclusive decision regarding her. Turnbull was/is a very common surname in the North East of England. My mother has two aunts and both married different men with the surname Turnbull, just to give some perspective lol.

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