Posted by: @sailor-haumea

↑

I think that someone could very easily read something extremely bad into this statement about Maggie Barnes considering that requiring a baptismal record effectively ensures that a lot of black supercentenarians would not be validatable under these standards, quite frankly.

 

I never said that a baptismal record is necessary in validating a supercentenarian. Maggie Barnes' case is just tricky because she was born in the early 1880s, after the 1880 census was taken, and her earliest census record (1890) doesn't exist anymore, so the only way we'd be able to find early-life evidence to support her claimed age would likely be a baptismal record, since birth registration was very incomplete in the Deep South at this point. This isn't something that only applies to black SCs, since many white American SCs have the same issue (including Sarah Knauss, who just so happened to have her 1890 census data preserved by sheer luck).

Posted by: @mendocino

↑

I never said that a baptismal record is necessary in validating a supercentenarian. Maggie Barnes' case is just tricky because she was born in the early 1880s, after the 1880 census was taken, and her earliest census record (1890) doesn't exist anymore, so the only way we'd be able to find early-life evidence to support her claimed age would likely be a baptismal record, since birth registration was very incomplete in the Deep South at this point. This isn't something that only applies to black SCs, since many white American SCs have the same issue (including Sarah Knauss, who just so happened to have her 1890 census data preserved by sheer luck).

I don't think a ten-year rule is reasonable for American supercentenarians considering that the 1890 census is largely nonexistent. The twenty year rule has been a thing for decades and has worked fine, there's no real need to change it. It's not the reason why false cases have gotten erroneously validated.

Posted by: @sailor-haumea

↑

I don't think a ten-year rule is reasonable for American supercentenarians considering that the 1890 census is largely nonexistent. The twenty year rule has been a thing for decades and has worked fine, there's no real need to change it. It's not the reason why false cases have gotten erroneously validated.

You can only say the 20 year window "works fine" for the United States because these cases very rarely turn up anything that conclusively proves their exact age. In the case of American supercentenarians born in states with birth registration, it's not unheard of for their claimed age to be off by a few days, weeks, or even months. Without a birth record, we would never know that Milly Skjordahl was a month younger than claimed, and we would've probably just validated her with her claimed DOB and never known the truth, but our data is more accurate thanks to her birth record. There aren't any apparent issues with these 20 year window cases because a census record from close to 20 years after a person's birth really can't be used as definitive proof for their exact age - it only gives you a rough idea. Even the 10 year window can be problematic, since people without birth records could end up losing track of their exact age early on. If a young child's birth is registered even just a few years late, their parents might end up misremembering exactly when they were born. There's a Brazilian case on LAS who claimed to be born in May 1909, and a delayed birth record from the 1910s supported this exact age, when it turns out he was actually born in May 1911, according to a baptismal record created not long after his birth. Just because these 20 year window cases can't be conclusively disproven, that doesn't mean we need to presume that their exact final age is true, down to the day.   

Posted by: @mendocino

↑

You can only say the 20 year window "works fine" for the United States because these cases very rarely turn up anything that conclusively proves their exact age. In the case of American supercentenarians born in states with birth registration, it's not unheard of for their claimed age to be off by a few days, weeks, or even months. Without a birth record, we would never know that Milly Skjordahl was a month younger than claimed, and we would've probably just validated her with her claimed DOB and never known the truth, but our data is more accurate thanks to her birth record. There aren't any apparent issues with these 20 year window cases because a census record from close to 20 years after a person's birth really can't be used as definitive proof for their exact age - it only gives you a rough idea. Even the 10 year window can be problematic, since people without birth records could end up losing track of their exact age early on. If a young child's birth is registered even just a few years late, their parents might end up misremembering exactly when they were born. There's a Brazilian case on LAS who claimed to be born in May 1909, and a delayed birth record from the 1910s supported this exact age, when it turns out he was actually born in May 1911, according to a baptismal record created not long after his birth. Just because these 20 year window cases can't be conclusively disproven, that doesn't mean we need to presume that their exact final age is true, down to the day.   

I don't think we should be discarding cases because of the possibility that they "might" be debunked by a birth record that doesn't exist. It doesn't come across as very scientific. We work with the data that we have, and revise accordingly when new data comes in, like a birth record.

Posted by: @sailor-haumea

↑

I don't think we should be discarding cases because of the possibility that they "might" be debunked by a birth record that doesn't exist. It doesn't come across as very scientific. We work with the data that we have, and revise accordingly when new data comes in, like a birth record.

This is why I've long proposed a system where cases like these can be validated to a lower level of certainty, where their year of birth can be authenticated to a high level of confidence without their exact DOB/final age being known. I definitely don't support these cases being completely "discarded" just because they don't meet our validation standards, but that doesn't mean we should lower our standards to accommodate cases with weaker evidence. If a SC doesn't even know their birthdate, we can't just invent a placeholder DOB for them to fill the data, yet cases like Gertrude Weaver are validated with completely made up birthdates. "Low level validation" seems like a good compromise.

As someone who focuses primarily on Latin American supercentenarian research, I find it to be a little bit frustrating with how much cases from the United States are given preferential treatment, and typically have a much lower burden of proof to be accepted and validated, to the point where the validation standards are deliberately loosened to accommodate them. A case from Latin America can never be validated without a birth record or a baptismal record, even when they have additional documentation from within the 20 year window. For instance, Josephina Maria da Conceição (1909-2023) of Brazil has a marriage record from when she was 15 which lists her exact date of birth, yet she's never been considered for validation, while American cases like Maggie Barnes can be validated with a marriage document created in her late teens. I would probably find this system to be less objectionable if it actually applied equally to every country, but that clearly isn't the case.

Posted by: @mendocino

↑

This is why I've long proposed a system where cases like these can be validated to a lower level of certainty, where their year of birth can be authenticated to a high level of confidence without their exact DOB/final age being known. I definitely don't support these cases being completely "discarded" just because they don't meet our validation standards, but that doesn't mean we should lower our standards to accommodate cases with weaker evidence. If a SC doesn't even know their birthdate, we can't just invent a placeholder DOB for them to fill the data, yet cases like Gertrude Weaver are validated with completely made up birthdates. "Low level validation" seems like a good compromise.

As someone who focuses primarily on Latin American supercentenarian research, I find it to be a little bit frustrating with how much cases from the United States are given preferential treatment, and typically have a much lower burden of proof to be accepted and validated, to the point where the validation standards are deliberately loosened to accommodate them. A case from Latin America can never be validated without a birth record or a baptismal record, even when they have additional documentation from within the 20 year window. For instance, Josephina Maria da Conceição (1909-2023) of Brazil has a marriage record from when she was 15 which lists her exact date of birth, yet she's never been considered for validation, while American cases like Maggie Barnes can be validated with a marriage document created in her late teens. I would probably find this system to be less objectionable if it actually applied equally to every country, but that clearly isn't the case.

I mean, I don't think that it should only be applicable for American cases. Josephina Maria da Conceição should be considered validated in such a scenario, honestly.

I agree with the disparity in the comparison made and like your suggestions around dealing with it.

The other side of the coin to some extent is that the Maggie Barnes validation did happen a long time ago.

I'm curious how Nabi Tajima's age dispute came to be that she could potentially be 1 year younger.

It is assumed when validating it is because sufficient evidence was found to prove your date of birth.

And I think they were going to give her the title, but they couldn't because she was hospitalized.

A polite reminder to only quote the relevant section of a post you're replying to, and to delete unnecessary information in the quoted section of your reply - otherwise, scrolling will become a painstakingly long activity for our fellow members using their smartphones. Thank you!

(I've just tidied up the unnecessarily long quoted sections in previous replies in this thread.)

After trying to make Caver's case more airtight, I wound up becoming confused. Investigating her daughter Mable Motley (1910-1989) led me to discovering that on Mable's marriage certificate she gave her mother's maiden name as DeJarnette.

The fact that the program for her funeral gives a completely different name for her mother (Judy Stoudemire) than she put on her Social Security application, and that there's a 1901 marriage record for a Judy Stoudemire and a Tobe DeJarnett makes me suspect that there's something very, very strange going on here. Based on the 1880 census record of Fayette/Fate Stoudemire and family, Judy Stoudemire (listed as Sadie's mother in the funeral program) and Neal Stoudemire (listed as Sadie's father in her Social Security application and in family genealogies online) were siblings. So did Judy raise her brother's daughter as her own child?

Posted by: @sailor-haumea

↑

After trying to make Caver's case more airtight, I wound up becoming confused. Investigating her daughter Mable Motley (1910-1989) led me to discovering that on Mable's marriage certificate she gave her mother's maiden name as DeJarnette.

The fact that the program for her funeral gives a completely different name for her mother (Judy Stoudemire) than she put on her Social Security application, and that there's a 1901 marriage record for a Judy Stoudemire and a Tobe DeJarnett makes me suspect that there's something very, very strange going on here. Based on the 1880 census record of Fayette/Fate Stoudemire and family, Judy Stoudemire (listed as Sadie's mother in the funeral program) and Neal Stoudemire (listed as Sadie's father in her Social Security application and in family genealogies online) were siblings. So did Judy raise her brother's daughter as her own child?

Actually, I think I did wind up strengthening the case - the same household that has the 12-year-old Sadie Mae Stoudemire in 1900 is the one in which Sadie Caver's daughter Mable DeJarnette is living in the 1920 census!