Posted by: @futurist

↑

If there are any other cases that you want me to take a look at, Sailor, please let me know right here, in this very thread.

What about trying to find a school census or something else for Georgia Parrish (1890?-2001), since efforts to find her in the 1900 census have consistently proven impossible? She'd probably be listed as Georgia Quincy Mefford or something as that was her birth name.

I was able to discover that this woman was actually likely 110 years old when she died instead of 109 like she claimed:

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/40657978/elva-may-gray

https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/sources/93JX-D33

Her documentation, including her earliest documentation, generally supports 1895 rather than 1896 as her birth year. The evidence in favor of her being born in 1895 is very strong, IMHO.

Posted by: @sailor-haumea

↑

Posted by: @futurist

↑

If there are any other cases that you want me to take a look at, Sailor, please let me know right here, in this very thread.

What about trying to find a school census or something else for Georgia Parrish (1890?-2001), since efforts to find her in the 1900 census have consistently proven impossible? She'd probably be listed as Georgia Quincy Mefford or something as that was her birth name. 

That I can try doing. I can't guarantee success by any means, but again, I can certainly try to do this.

Posted by: @futurist

↑

@Sailor Haumea There's a FamilySearch.org catalog here where you are able to search for various places and see what kinds of documentation and records they (as in, each place) has:

https://www.familysearch.org/search/catalog

BTW, off-topic, but in regards to Alice Meeder, I found a possible reference for her in an 1895 newspaper article:

https://nyshistoricnewspapers.org/?a=d&d=wyon18950208-01.1.8&srpos=1&e=-------en-20--1--txt-txIN-alice+mcmahon+lorish---------

It mentions an Alice McMahon from Middlebury, New York getting a certificate of indigence and/or lunacy along with some other people. We know that Alice's younger sister Cora was an epileptic, so maybe Alice had some mental health problems in her youth as well? Just a hypothesis, of course. But Alice was born in Middlebury and her stepfather's (whom her mother married at around this time) last name was indeed McMahon. I couldn't find any other Alice McMahons who lived in Wyoming County, New York during this time. I know that Alice went by Alice Langenstein (her birth name) in 1900, but maybe she went by Alice McMahon back in 1895?

Anyway, it would be really interesting to find this certificate of indigence and/or lunacy for her in order to see if it lists her age and/or her birth year, but unfortunately I was unable to do so. I tried very hard but nevertheless unfortunately couldn't find it. Maybe it's not online. I don't know.

For Alice Meeder, her 1930 US Census entry gave her age at first marriage as 20, which matches with her getting married in early 1901. She was already married to a different man in 1930 than the one whom she married back in 1901 (and who later abandoned both her and their children), so she would have no incentive to lie about this information in 1930.

Posted by: @futurist

↑

Posted by: @sailor-haumea

↑

Posted by: @futurist

↑

If there are any other cases that you want me to take a look at, Sailor, please let me know right here, in this very thread.

What about trying to find a school census or something else for Georgia Parrish (1890?-2001), since efforts to find her in the 1900 census have consistently proven impossible? She'd probably be listed as Georgia Quincy Mefford or something as that was her birth name. 

That I can try doing. I can't guarantee success by any means, but again, I can certainly try to do this. 

FWIW, if my memory is correct, I unfortunately couldn't find anything. I'm very sorry about that. 🙁 You're welcome to search the familysearch.org Catalog yourself (for her Kentucky county), but IIRC I don't think that they have school census entries for her specific Kentucky county, or at least not from that early.

@Mendocino If you're curious, I found Walter Breuning's birth record on familysearch.org. It confirms September 21, 1896 for him. Fish can confirm this. I showed him the relevant link. It's unindexed but even though it only lists a last name, it does list his sex (male) correctly and his parents' names, ages, and birthplaces correctly IIRC.

So, Walter Breuning's claimed age really was correct. Though I also found a birth record for his elder sister Clara Belle that indicated that she was actually born in 1894 and not in 1893 like she claimed later on in her life. I tried finding a birth record for his elder sister Ethol as well but was unfortunately unsuccessful. Maybe I just didn't look carefully enough, or maybe it simply isn't there due to some births being unregistered back then.

Another question: Does anyone here know where exactly Gordon LeVern Saunders's (1910/1911-2020) delayed birth record is located on familysearch.org? I unfortunately searched for it but couldn't find it. We need it to verify his age as 110 because his 1920 US Census entry implies a birth year of 1911 and a final age of 109 for him. I still think that 1910 and a final age of 110 is correct for him because that's what his later documentation shows, but we need at least some kind of allusion to an original family Bible entry or to an original baptismal record to go with this and to overrule his 1920 US Census entry in regards to this.

Posted by: @marco

↑

Sara Camarena, MEX/USA, 16 July 1891??? - 20 June 2005, 113??? years and 339 days. *

Fish and I did a sibling check for her and have ruled out all of her sisters other than Carolina (who was less than two years younger than Secundina) as candidates for an identity switch for Secundina. If Carolina = Secundina, then her final age would have been 112, not almost 114. But what's the incentive to switch identities to add just a couple of extra years to one's age?

The rest of Secundina's sisters have paper trails that extend after Secundina's 1921 marriage, so they could not have stolen Secundina's identity. So, if there was an identity switch, it was either Carolina (unlikely), some cousin, or someone else entirely (not sure whom). But there's no smoking gun for an identity switch hypothesis. Massively deflating one's age to marry a much younger man is theoretically possible, as is naturally giving birth at age 52, regardless of it being very statistically unlikely. There have been cases of women naturally giving birth in their early 50s.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pregnancy_over_age_50#:~:text=The%20oldest%20verified%20mother%20to,age%20of%2059%20in%201997.

@pgibbs: I want to make a specific point to you: Christian Mortensen is much more of an outlier for verifiable Danish-born men and Juan Vicente Perez Mora is much more of an outlier for Venezuelan men than Jeanne Calment is for French women. After Mortensen, the next-oldest Danish-born man in history is just barely over 110 (over 5.5 years younger than Mortensen himself was when he died) and I don't think that any other Venezuelan man is verified to have lived to age 110+ either, though there is the possibility that we don't know about someone or even more than one person as a result of a lack of historical research for Venezuela in regards to this. Meanwhile, after Jeanne Calment, the next-oldest French woman is Lucile Randon, who was slightly over 3.5 years younger than Jeanne Calment herself was when she died.

@futurist you raise some interesting points. Here are a few more that need to be considered

- firstly, I am sure you will agree that nobody should consider outlier status of a few years on its own as evidence of inauthenticity. It must be weighed in combination with other evidence

- There are about 200 countries in the world, which means that statistically we can expect a few individuals that are outliers by several years within their countries. It would be a logical fallacy to count this as stronger evidence against them without taking this statistical effect into account.

- When assessing outlier status it is not optimal to compare with the age of the second oldest in the list. If you have a top 100 list for a given population group then you can better estimate expected maximum age using the formula

                               eMRAD = 2a(10) - a(100)

where a(n) is the age of the nth person on the list. When assessing an individual from the past, the list as of their date of death should be used

- The evidence for the authenticity of Mortensen and Randon is very good and is not outweighed by any outlier status.

- As far as I know, LAS have not published any public reports or documentary details for any of their validations and there is limited information that can be accessed online from South American countries. This makes it very hard to review their work. It would be helpful to have a general report on their methods published, as has been done for other regions, and also specific reports for important cases such as JVPM. Unless that happens their validations have limited scientific value despite all their hard work, and it is difficult to independently assess the authenticity of individual validations.

- Taking these principles into account, Jeanne Calment was a global outlier by about five years in her time. That is exceptional, but it is not decisive on its own. We have never made any claim on this basis alone.

Posted by: @futurist

↑

@Mendocino If you're curious, I found Walter Breuning's birth record on familysearch.org. It confirms September 21, 1896 for him. Fish can confirm this. I showed him the relevant link. It's unindexed but even though it only lists a last name, it does list his sex (male) correctly and his parents' names, ages, and birthplaces correctly IIRC.

So, Walter Breuning's claimed age really was correct. Though I also found a birth record for his elder sister Clara Belle that indicated that she was actually born in 1894 and not in 1893 like she claimed later on in her life. I tried finding a birth record for his elder sister Ethol as well but was unfortunately unsuccessful. Maybe I just didn't look carefully enough, or maybe it simply isn't there due to some births being unregistered back then.

Here is Clara Belle's birth record:

https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33SQ-G5LL-SJC3?i=243&cc=1920099&cat=546357

Continued here:

https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33SQ-G5LL-SJQ6?i=244&cc=1920099&cat=546357

She is listed near the bottom.

And here is Walter himself, on #218 here:

https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33S7-95LL-SJSV?i=401&cc=1920099&cat=546357

Continued here:

https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33S7-95LL-SJC1?i=402&cc=1920099&cat=546357

Walter's birth record doesn't list his first name, only his last name, but based on his birth date, birth place, parents' names, and parents' ages, we can be virtually sure that it's him.

Posted by: @pgibbs

↑

@futurist you raise some interesting points. Here are a few more that need to be considered

- firstly, I am sure you will agree that nobody should consider outlier status of a few years on its own as evidence of inauthenticity. It must be weighed in combination with other evidence

- There are about 200 countries in the world, which means that statistically we can expect a few individuals that are outliers by several years within their countries. It would be a logical fallacy to count this as stronger evidence against them without taking this statistical effect into account.

- When assessing outlier status it is not optimal to compare with the age of the second oldest in the list. If you have a top 100 list for a given population group then you can better estimate expected maximum age using the formula

                               eMRAD = 2a(10) - a(100)

where a(n) is the age of the nth person on the list. When assessing an individual from the past, the list as of their date of death should be used

- The evidence for the authenticity of Mortensen and Randon is very good and is not outweighed by any outlier status.

- As far as I know, LAS have not published any public reports or documentary details for any of their validations and there is limited information that can be accessed online from South American countries. This makes it very hard to review their work. It would be helpful to have a general report on their methods published, as has been done for other regions, and also specific reports for important cases such as JVPM. Unless that happens their validations have limited scientific value despite all their hard work, and it is difficult to independently assess the authenticity of individual validations.

- Taking these principles into account, Jeanne Calment was a global outlier by about five years in her time. That is exceptional, but it is not decisive on its own. We have never made any claim on this basis alone.

With Calment, I think that the speculation in regards to her signature slightly changing around 1934 is too much of a conjecture.

In regards to a lot of LAS cases, you can personally access the documentation for them online on FamilySearch.org. What we do know about Juan Vicente Perez Mora, of course, is that he was his parents' last son (he had eight older brothers and one younger sister), so an identity switch with an elder brother of his would not be possible. Apparently he was baptized just two days after his birth, which is also when his birth was registered. He apparently got married in 1938. I don't know if the specific marriage record for him was found (I couldn't find it on familysearch.org, but I might not have looked hard enough). The death record of one of his sons from 1997 says that this son was born in 1941, though. And of course Juan Vicente had a whole bunch of identity cards ever since the 1950s that confirm his age.

Here is his FS.org documentation page in full:

https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/sources/G2K5-FWT

There's also apparently a link to a book about his documentation and family history here:

https://the110club.com/juan-vicente-perez-mora-1909-present-t23638-s15.html

Maybe you need to log into Facebook to get permission to see it? Not sure, TBH.

@Marco Is the ESO aware of this woman's case?

https://the110club.com/rosa-clark-1887-1998-ch-us-mt-t8161.html?sid=27b98addaf2c3522a74fbfcb80d84da1

Might be worth seeing if a baptismal record in Switzerland can be found for her.

@Mendocino Do you think that China would have had better record-keeping in the late 19th and early 20th centuries had this mid-19th century Chinese rebellion actually succeeded?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiping_Rebellion

Seems like China would have at least done a lot more baptisms in such a scenario, no?

BTW, my biggest regrets in regards to SC validation are the huge damage that both World Wars did in combination with both Nazism and Communism. This is why extreme male longevity (110+) is virtually non-existent among ex-USSR men who have spent their entire lives living in the (ex-)USSR, for instance.

@ChrisR In regards to the terms White and Black, they aren't considered offensive here in the US and indeed are both still used by the US Census Bureau. Is Australia much different in regards to this?

Posted by: @futurist

↑

@Marco Is the ESO aware of this woman's case?

[Rosa Clark]

Yes, obviously it is.

Posted by: @futurist

↑

@ChrisR In regards to the terms White and Black, they aren't considered offensive here in the US and indeed are both still used by the US Census Bureau. Is Australia much different in regards to this?

Yes … please see the relevant posts from yesterday, including the messages Simon Frogg and I exchanged.

Posted by: @chrisr

↑

Posted by: @futurist

↑

@ChrisR In regards to the terms White and Black, they aren't considered offensive here in the US and indeed are both still used by the US Census Bureau. Is Australia much different in regards to this?

Yes … please see the relevant posts from yesterday, including the messages Simon Frogg and I exchanged.

OK, but European-descended takes much longer to type out relative to white. Should I just say Euro instead, then?

@futurist It really is an antiquated topic - are there not more interesting or relevant things to discuss?

Posted by: @musicotic

↑

@futurist It really is an antiquated topic - are there not more interesting or relevant things to discuss?

I wasn't the one who first raised a controversy over this.

Anyway, did you see the birth records for Walter Breuning and his elder sister that I have posted above? It confirms a final age of slightly over 114.5 for Walter but does indicate that Clara Belle was a year younger than claimed.

Is there any indication that genes could explain why Latin American men perform so well relative to Latin American women, relative to how relatively poorly male SCs from various other countries perform relative to female SCs from the same countries? Might be a taboo topic, but I nevertheless figured that I might as well ask it here.

Or was it simply a case of childbirth in early and mid-20th century Latin American countries still being very dangerous for women?

@futurist The World Wars likely play a tacit in why Latin American male longevity has been performing strongly recently.

Posted by: @simon-frogg

↑

@futurist The World Wars likely play a tacit in why Latin American male longevity has been performing strongly recently.

I'm not sure that I would agree with that. WWI was very devastating for the West, very true, but WWII was much less so, other than for Japan and Germany. Out of the large countries with good documentation-keeping 110+ years ago, only Japan, Germany, and the Soviet Union suffered an extraordinary amount in WWII. The West (excluding Germany and Japan) wasn't that strongly affected. France, for instance, had a much more pleasant WWII than WWI, other than for its Jews, obviously. Maybe this explains why 20th century French men have been performing relatively well when it comes to extreme longevity?

Maybe WWII really did kill a Japanese man or two who had the potential to live to age 113+. But for other countries, I suspect that it's much less likely.

For that matter, British male SCs born during the 20th century have performed pretty well as well. But not US-born male SCs of Euro descent born in the 20th century, who have performed considerably worse when it comes to extreme longevity than their 19th century-born predecessors. African-American US-born male SCs born in the 20th century have performed fairly well, though, especially given the much smaller population pool that they came from.

Is there any correlation between extremely good memory during one's youth and extreme longevity?

Futurist - do we really need many of these posts you are making ?

You do have the ability to make some good contributions, but equally, after all these years you still make multiple posts on the same topic, or ask questions that either aren’t relevant or can never realistically be answered, including bumping old threads for no real meaningful purpose.

Can you please just slow down a bit. It generally would make the Forum a bit easier to navigate.

Thank you.

Posted by: @chrisr

↑

Futurist - do we really need many of these posts you are making ?

You do have the ability to make some good contributions, but equally, after all these years you still make multiple posts on the same topic, or ask questions that either aren’t relevant or can never realistically be answered, including bumping old threads for no real meaningful purpose.

Can you please just slow down a bit. It generally would make the Forum a bit easier to navigate.

Thank you.

I get your point, Chris. I just wish to be able to occasionally share my observations, such as the fact that Europe currently has 10+ verifiable living men who are oldest than the current US's oldest living man. That's quite incredible, isn't it?

The memory/longevity question I asked about myself, to try figuring out how long I should expect to live in good circumstances.

@Mendocino @Sailor Haumea @ChrisR I have a useful tip about finding old newspapers from Google. I have recently discovered this.

You go to Google Books, then where it says "Any document", click on it and then click on "Newspapers" and where it says "Any time", click on it and then click on "Custom range" to insert your own date range. You can also click on "Magazines" instead of "Newspapers" if you want to search magazines instead.

Whoever sent me a message, I don't have the option of seeing or sending any messages on this forum. So, please post this message here, in my thread, instead. I will respond to it.