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List of centenarians

On this article, there is a person who is said to have lived from 1788 - 1901. Could someone confirm this? Or is this a mistake? -AMK152^{(Talk • Contributions • Send message)} 18:52, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Do me a favor. Read this page: here Neal 20:26, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

2 of top 12 men die in a week

Elias Wen died on the 8th but I only found out when he was removed today. I have added Aarne Arvonen. Frank Scarrabelotti would have been tied for 10th but he died yesterday. In the grand scheme of things it isn't important but it would have been nice for him to be up for a few days. Shows how fast things can change. It does avoid arguments about whether alphabetical order or timezone (if they had those in the 1890s) should take precident. Henry Allingham beats George Francis on both counts in 3rd, and his case came to notice first aswell, but there was no such distiction between Arvonen and Scarrabelotti, and the other two criteria clash. It may be a long time before the same problem arises again, but something to discuss.

Another debate will be top 10 or 110+. It says top 10 which is why I thought Arvonen needed to be added. And if it was 110+ we could get a spate of 110 year old men and have to add all of them, which seems worse than adding one man who'll be 110 in two months. I know it seems unlikely that there is a 6 month gap after Aime Avignon - the same gap as between Tanabe and Nakanishi. Ruell Millar would have been there if he hadn't died. I remember before the Francis, Wen and Tseien cases were added, another was put into 10th place, born around May 97. If this was accurate and that man is still alive then please add him, or indeed anyone else - Arvonen can wait his turn. Otherwise, it looks like it has to be him. 87.194.248.174 03:48, 13 June 2007 (UTC)Captain celery

What about Ronnie Fairbanks from the USA. He was born on May 29, 1897 and celebrated his 109th birthday last year. I did neither find something about his death, nor an information about his 110th birthday. If he is still alive today he would be older then Arvonen.

That's the one. Hopefully someone will be able to say if he is alive or not. 163.1.42.59 22:20, 19 June 2007 (UTC)Captain celery

I already asked at "WOP", but no answer yet. Extremely sexy 16:53, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

He was last confirmed alive in May 2006.Ryoung122 20:42, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Oldest?

If you do a research on Chechnya, there were or are at least two woman who are 125 years, but do they have enough evidence to prove their age? It's possible and it needs to be deeply investigated asap! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.99.1.237 (talk • contribs)

No, no, no! These cases are false. End of message.Ryoung122 20:41, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Why...you may go ahead and investigate them, and show us the evidence. Neal 05:08, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Autoupdating vs. Daily Updating

To the MORON who keeps attempting to replace the auto-updating formula with a date that needs to be updated daily: do you really want to update something 365 days a year when the computer does it for you?Ryoung122 20:41, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Your name calling is getting worse as we speak: calling someone "AN IDIOT" or "A MORON" is not the way to do it: addressing people this way isn't being polite at all, but I guess we don't have to expect some decent behaviour from you at all, which has become more and more clear to me, having read and seen lots of messages from you at this website. Extremely sexy 03:14, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Dear Extremely sexy, I fully agree on what you said! Robert's writing is becoming more and more aggressive and even insulting (as in the above case). His merits in gerontlogy research are doubtlessly considerable but this is NOT a legitimation to treat others in a most disrespectful way! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.85.156.75 (talk • contribs)

Thanks for agreeing with me: I also told him this several times in a lot of emails, plus on my talk page yesterday. Extremely sexy 11:47, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Hmm.. Neal 05:09, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Calling a spade a spade is honest. Let me ask...can anyone discuss something SUBSTANTIVE here? Please explain why replacing an auto-update with a manual one is an 'improvement'--or am I missing something here?Ryoung122 20:52, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Note I didn't go for the name-calling until the reverts were done several times without explanation. If name-calling is what it takes to get one's attention, then it is worth it. NOT explaining forked-editing is the worst thing you can possibly do. The key to solving a problem starts with identifying it. Notably, the person who wrote what they did is using an anonymous, unidentified IP address. Hence, how can I be biased against an IP address? I can, however, recognize stupidity when I see it.

Is it not true that Japanese martial-arts experts, and even Confucius himself, castigated students for poor learning, even calling them 'fools'...so name-calling, if it leads one to THINK for a moment, is a redeemable art. I have not ventured into the realm of the profane or unwarranted name-calling, but only toward those with a long pattern of abusive editing. Abusive editing includes things such as not compromising and not explaining one's position, especially when an edit is controversial.

Also, I use name-calling not for the mere purpose of calling one a name, but in an if-then supposition that should lead one to see the error of their ways. Perhaps, however, I could be a bit more oblique: instead of calling one a name, I should state a third-person hypothetical: "Only a fool would want to manually edit a date 365 days a year, when a computer-generated bot could automatically do all the work for free." Would removing the direct finally open one's eyes? Finally, I note that although Bart disagrees with my personality, he agrees with the autoupdating feature...which is why he didn't mention it. Ryoung122 20:58, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Unbelievably, people continue to try to replace the auto-updating feature with a manual update that must be changed 365 days/year. This is illogical, and it will not stand. So don't try it.Ryoung122 21:40, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Last Person Born in the 18th Century?

I think it'd be cool if on this page, as well as the List of notable last events, if someone could find who the last person was to be born in the 18th century. I see one pre-1950's centenarian that was born in the 18th and lived till the very early 20th, could she be the last? I'm trying to research it myself, but does anyone else know or have any suggestions? V8americanpower 15:40, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

A man in France was born on December 31, 1899, 21:50. Neal 19:46, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

The 18th century (this is an example of something that is true despite being not-so-obvious) is the time from 1700-1799; the day you mentioned was the last day of the 19th century. Georgia guy 19:49, 17 July 2007 (UTC) (Edit conflict)

Oh, you meant 1700s. That was very well probably Sophia Wijnberg. Neal 19:47, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Georgia guy, I just answered his question in the above comment. But I guess you didn't know the 2 comments were made both by me. Or you were just ignorant and decided to correct a mistake I already realized. That's okay. Neal 23:12, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, it seems that your comment was made 2 minutes after my correction comment. Now I will assume there is the possibility you were looking at this page for more than 2 minutes before seeing my post and replying. Neal 23:14, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Actually, the 18th century was from 1701 to 1800...that's why it's the '18th' century. I do know a man born in 1800 died in 1909.Ryoung122 01:28, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Dont want to get that whole old "when does a century begin" debate going, so I'll take the elementary approach to it. Who was the last person born in a year that began with a 17? OK? I can find noone after Sophia Wijnberg, so I'm beginning to think she's the sole survivor of the 18th century. I think that makes her worthy of a page, eh? V8americanpower 01:48, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Thomas Parr

Should Old Parr be in this list or not? Arundhati lejeune 23:44, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

No, man: in the longevity myths article, since it's obviously untrue. Extremely sexy 18:15, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Re: Should someone be in the list depends on whether their case is substantial or validated, or accepted by Guinness. Why don't you ask yourself that about whether this grandfathered case should be mentioned? There's a list of men claiming age from 130-185, why is Thomas Parr any significant than the others? Neal 15:23, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Neal, 'grandfathered case' is a term that means 'accepted by rules that no longer apply.' It came from the U.S. South, where citizens could vote if their 'grandfather' voted (a Jim Crow law meant to prevent blacks from voting). Its use in the political realm has gone into the mainstream. This should apply to Shigechiyo Izumi (still listed by the Japanese government as the recordholder) but not Thomas Parr (because the British government does not accept the case as valid. A case is only 'grandfathered' if it hasn't been removed from present data and the record and was accepted based on rules that have since been changed.Ryoung122 03:34, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Irish and South African supercentenarians - why so few?

Why do you think the national longevity records of Katherine Plunket (Ireland) and Johanna Booyson (South Africa) have lasted so long? The Great Irish Famine of the 19th Century may have decimated the population to an extent a generation or two before today's supercentenarians were born but even so. And how about South Africa? It's a country that has seen a lot of change over the last century, but why the difference in this aspect from other similar countries? Both are countries not too dissimilar in many ways to the UK, France, Italy and Australia; which are well represented with supercentenarians, so why not Ireland and South Africa? What do you think? Rrsmac 01:00, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

First of all, it is not good to combine two countries; each should be discussed separately. As it is, Ireland is a nation with basically complete and validated data, yet no one in Ireland has broken Plunkett's record since 1932. Note this is partly a statistical anomaly. Consider that Mary Crombie, 113, of the USA was of Irish ancestry. None of the unvalidated Irish cases of recent years would have broken Plunkett's record. The real reason the record is still there...Ireland has just about 4 million people (less than the metro area of Miami FL).

With South Africa, however, we have a different story. A more populous nation but for whom the majority of the population is 'unvalidated'. And, while it may be that records exist for the 'white' population, there is also a lack of correspondents, and the problems of dealing with a shift from apartheid to post-apartheid and AIDS meant that, unlike in Europe, issues of age are not of primary importance. In 1999 it was reported that Nicklaas Amsterdam reached age 112, but nothing more came of that.Ryoung122 10:12, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Personally, I don't even know how or why Johanna Booyston got in the Guinness. Guinness listed some disputed cases from South Africa, so it beats me why or how Johanna's case isn't. That should be looked into. A lot of Guinness's original cases have been debunked, I wonder if Johanna could be as well. As per Katherine Plunket - her case is definitely valid and substantial. I, too, have wondered why Ireland doesn't have any "3-star" supercentenarian cases. Robert's list lists some 2-star supercentenarians from Ireland. However, I think the problem is GRG doesn't have an Ireland-correspondent. So no one there studies Irish claims. Some time ago, I went around stripping out common coutries from the GRG list, until all the people of only 1 country were listed. This was apparently the case for Ireland and South Africa - only 1 known person, and neither 1 of them were studied or had anything to do with GRG. GRG started out in 1999 with a "original 1999 list," mosty, if not all, from Guinness. And Robert Young should be able to give you a more in-depth accurate answer. Neal 04:02, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Let's be straightforward: Ms Booyston was most likely a white, Dutch woman, an Afrikaner...for whom records exist. However, there has been little interest shown in South Africa to effectively track ages of persons. Note that since we have claimants claiming ages up to 133 years old, the politics of race come into play. Suppose we have a validated, 112-year-old white person in South Africa...along with three blacks claiming to be 133, 126, and 121 years old but who are really aged 102, 109, and 105. The news is not going to report that the 112-year-old is South Africa's oldest person. Thus, we have in South Africa an example of what happens when age verification is NOT important...false/exaggerated claims mask the real cases. It doesn't matter that age-inflation is 'universal' (in times past, Englishmen claimed to be 207, 169, 152, etc)...people see race and immediately presume bias, when in fact the bias is the other way around: when records are absent, there is nothing to keep age inflation in check.Ryoung122 10:17, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Neal mentions that GRG doesn't have an Ireland correspondent. What would a correspondent need to do? Is it purely a full time job for people working in the field of gerontology, or can someone do it to a certain degree on an amateur basis? If it can be done through a certain amount of correspondence and the odd visit to records offices in Ireland then I would be pleased to help in the absence of an Ireland based correspondent. I live in London and Dublin is less than an hour's flight time away. In the meantime I have found this website: - Centenarian Bounty Scheme. It concerns an allowance paid by the Irish government to Irish-born centenarians living at home and abroad. How could we approach them to find out how old their claimants are and have been? Rrsmac 00:21, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Since Rrsmac has been bold, I will throw my hat into the ring for this job that probably doesn't exist. I live in Wales so I'm only a ferry journey away from Ireland, and my best friend is from Dublin. I'm also good with a microfiche (I'm really grasping at straws now). Captain celery 00:56, 10 August 2007 (UTC)Captain celery

Greetings,

Being the 'GRG correspondent for Ireland' would be an unpaid volunteer position. The primary expection would be to identify Irish persons aged 108 and over (if you want to track at 105, fine, but ages 105-107 are generally too numerous to report, unless someone were the 'oldest woman' or 'oldest man' in Ireland) and verify their ages if they reached 110. If you are both really interested, I suggest first joining this group here:

http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/Worlds_Oldest_People/

You can then give us timely updates on: Ireland's oldest person, oldest man, any woman aged 108+ and any man aged 107+ in Ireland.

If you 'choose' to do earlier ages, I have a correspondent in Germany who has a massive collection of pictures of people aged 105+. However the GRG only puts up pictures of persons who have reached age 110.

If you establish a track record for timely and knowledgeable reporting, then perhaps a promotion to GRG would be in the cards. The bottom line is: the GRG system is sort of a 'feudal' structure: you would be expected to be the person 'responsible' for Ireland. However, given Ireland's low population (about 4 million) it would definitely be a part-time, not full-time, pursuit.

Finally, here's a typical example of what you would do:

Both of these women were reported to have reached age '109' in 2005. No subsequent information is available. Can you find a death date, or are they still living?

Ireland Irene Richardson May 29, 1896 109* W F Ireland Alice Northridge June 27, 1896 109* W F

Or, how about this one: can someone find the birth and marriage certificates for this woman?

Ireland Maggie Dolan July 27, 1893 Dec. 2, 2004 111 128 W F Ireland

Sincerely Robert YoungRyoung122 20:03, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Oooh. If both you guys think you can help, that'd be great. If you can find information of the oldest people in Ireland, that'd be even better. One of the advantages out of the Internet are cases of local newspapers. If someone had a "105th" birthday in Ireland and put on the newspaper, it may not reach the Internet. What correspondents typically do is travel around their country meeting the oldest people of their country, such as contacting the family or nursing homes, attending birthdays, and with a digital camera, take photos of the person's birth certificate, find them in the census, etc. For example, there was a photo of Katherine Plunket (1820-1932) in a local newspaper. Such a photo has not been uploaded to the Internet, so if you guys think you can track newspapers like that, that'd be great. It isn't a full-time job, no, no one gets paid for it. More like a hobby. Neal 19:35, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Oldest living person is deceased

Mrs. Minagawa died on August 13th, 2007. http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,22241913-5005961,00.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by 167.10.240.1 (talk • contribs)

You know, you're better off editing the articles and putting the link in your edit message (in case people suspct you of vandalism). If we have to have a new entry for everytime the oldest person in the world dies.. Mmm. You posted the link so someone else can edit it, right? Neal 00:14, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

I think that "Nation of death" is not really an appropriate section title. What about "Supercentenarians listed by nation", or something similar. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Srn (talk • contribs)

Denying death is not appropriate. A person can live in six different nations in their lifetime, but they are only born in one place and only die in one place.

Ryoung122 13:10, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

New World's Oldest Person?

This article claims that a Russian has documentation to support the claim of 117 years. http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070814/wl_nm/russia_oldest_dc_1 TimothyPilgrim 13:05, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

The Russians also claimed they didn't kill Alexander Litvinenko.Ryoung122 13:09, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

And when that documentation to support the claim comes into publication..... Neal 16:24, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

--- Also, there is a new claim by an Israeli woman named Mariam Amash that she was born in 1888 which makes her the world's oldest person and the third oldest person ever, if validated. She has 120 grandchildren and 250 great grandchildren and if her claim is true, she is the last survivor of the 1880s. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 138.23.2.34 (talk) 19:24, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

This has been discussed under the heading "Miriam Amash" near the bottom of this page (where all new topics should be). If a news report was all that was necessary she would be more than 10 years younger than the "world's oldest person". See Longevity claims.DerbyCountyinNZ (talk) 20:03, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the news update, 138.23.2.34 (or simply anonymous). Neal (talk) 23:09, 21 February 2008 (UTC).

Nationality & ethnicity

Is it appropriate to write "Black American" beside some folk but only "American" rather than "White American" or "Native American" besides others? -- SGBailey 22:06, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't see a column for race/ethnicity. Were you thinking of adding 1? I don't see a problem with that, except a lot of it is common information, i.e., almost all supercentenarians from Japan are Japanese, from France, French, etc. Almost all blacks are from U.S.A. Were you thinking of dividing up the oldest blacks into their own table? Neal 09:35, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

No. It just seems wrong to me to describe some folk as "Black American" and others as just "American". Either they should all be "American" or they should be "Black American", "White American" etc. I'll edit the article and remove the "Black"s. -- SGBailey 19:55, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Guadeloupe and New Caledonia

Considering the tiny populations (400,000 and 240,000) of these islands, it's remarkable that both currently boast supercentenarians. Something in the air? New Caledonia has Marie-Louise L'Huillier aged 112y 52d, while Guadeloupe even had two (Mathilde Octavie Tafna died last May at 112y 58d, Eugenie Blanchard is still alive at 111y 182d). What are the chances of that? Though these are officially "overseas bits of France", I think these people, who spent their entire life on their island so nowhere-near France, should get a place among the national record holders. Afasmit 07:39, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I think some people (such as those listing the Channel Islands and Faeroe Islands as 'nations', are going to far. First off, regarding French overseas territories, you have to know something about the French empire of the 19th-early 20th century:

http://www.amazon.com/Empire-Love-Histories-France-Pacific/dp/0195162951

Just as the UK settled places like Canada and Australia, France sent their 'emigrants' to far outposts of the colony, whether New Caledonia, Guadeloupe, or French Polynesia (compare this to places like Italy and Ireland and Russia, who sent mass waves to America, and whose populations gradually Americanized). True, even Algeria was a 'part of France' from 1890 to 1962 (so listing Anne Primout as the Algerian recordholder is a bit suspect, and smacks of attempts at making the database seem more 'diverse' than it really is). The fact of the matter is, these areas were often indoctrinated into the French Empire which included learning the French language and culture. Moreover, while many empires crumbles in the 20th century (torn apart by Nationalism) France has so far kept a disproportionate overseas territory: some, such as Mayotte, even voted to stay part of the empire.

However, the real reason for the current listing has to do with legalism: places like Guadeloupe are counted as part of the French population and are allowed to vote in French elections (this is the main difference between Guadeloupe and Puerto Rico: Puerto Ricans cannot vote in Congress or for U.S. president, and are not counted by the census as part of the U.S. population). In short, places like New Caledonia are currently the French version of Hawaii. Yes, the USA conquered Hawaii and annexed it illegally, but it's still the U.S. Hawaiians are counted as part of the U.S. population and get to vote for representatives in Congress and electors for president.Ryoung122 11:06, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

That's what I thought, and it's understandable, though I find it silly that a person in Monaco, for all practical purposes a town in France, may be listed while a person who has never been in a 5000 mile radius of France won't (for being a French citizen). By the way, New Caledonia never was an overseas department. It was a colony until 1946, then became an overseas territory until 1999, is something more autonomous now, and may vote for independence in 2014. I don't know if they can vote in French elections. If it becomes independent, it'll be just like Australia (Christina Cock was born in the British colony of Victoria) or Puerto Rico (Emilano and Ramona were born in a Spanish colony).

Monaco has been 'independent' since 1297, and was originally an ITALIAN city-state...it was never French. Marie-Louise Lhuillier and Eugenie Blanchard both were born with French names to French parents of French ethnic origin. They live in areas that are officially counted as 'part of France' with representation in the French legislature. Even if New Caledonia declared independence in 2014, Marie-Louise would be long-gone (unless you think she'd make it to 119). In any case, if Marie makes it to the top of the French list, would she be considered the 'oldest person in France'? We'll have to wait and see.

For sanity's sake I hope that, if New Caledonia would become independent after her death, Marie-Louise would still be considered the national recordholder of that new nation (unless someone got older then her). At any rate, though it is interesting (and maybe even significant) that 3 of the six oldest "French" people in April 2007 lived on two small islands in the tropics, my question about the disputed cases below was more serious. Could you address that, Robert? Afasmit 19:23, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Note we had a similar issue with the U.S./Puerto Rico. However, considering that Puerto Ricans doen't vote and aren't counted as part of the U.S. population, it's a different story.Ryoung122 08:44, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

To answer my own silly question, I suppose the odds of having two supercentenarians (they actually both were over 111 in April 2007) living at the same time on Guadeloupe (given 75 supercentenarians randomly distributed over perhaps a billion people with verifiable birth data), is something like (75 * 400,000/1 billion) squared, or about 1 in 10,000. In other words, it's bound to happen somewhere, though I still wonder what water they drink there. Afasmit 19:30, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Puerto Rico had 2 supercentenarians up until May 29, 2004, when the oldest woman in the world from Puerto Rico died. Neal 04:24, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Puerto Rico has 10 times more inhabitants than Guadeloupe, but you're right, this was remarkable as well, as both would be the oldest person in the world for a while. Time to move to the Caribbean ;-) Afasmit 05:15, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Disputed cases in "oldest living people" table

Sorry to drag up an old dispute again, but, since this list is stated to be "retroactive", I don't see why cases that later are shown to be very weak (e.g. James Henry Brett, Shigechiyo Izumi, Carrie C. White) shouldn't be replaced with undisputed data. They could go in as footnotes. Leaving these in allows people to argue that other claims, never accepted because the weaknesses were discovered in time, should be added as well (and Richard Washington would be at the bottom of the list now...). I also don't buy the anti-scientific "the referee at that time thought so" argument; new evidence is as valid as evidence that was available earlier and if facts contradict long-hold believes, you don't change the facts, but your believes. Afasmit 10:39, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

The thing with Carrie White is that her entry is not taking the recognition away from anyone else. Jeanne Calment would just have a longer reign. That's not to justify her inclusion, just that it doesn't matter so much. With Brett there is Rosalia Spoto and Christina Karnebeek, and with Izumi there are loads of people being 'held back'. If we did exclude him we would be scrabbling for some of the oldest men entries, and there would be the Mathew Beard debate. Again, not a justification, but difficulties. Captain celery 23:16, 17 August 2007 (UTC)Captain celery

This is not a real issue. Wikipedia has a policy of 'no original research.' Unless the case is retracted, we should keep it. Note that even though DOUBT has been cast on the Izumi, White, and Hongo cases, in each instance the evidence was either not produced or was it was not certain. This differs from a case such as Pierre Joubert where a scientific paper was published explaining why the case is false. Note in the Hongo case, there was evidence in both directions: her oldest child was born in 1909 and her mother in 1845. Perhaps she could have been a year or two younger, but not by much. Ryoung122 14:08, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

If she was a year younger then she would still have been the oldest person, except with a shorter reign, following Grace Clawson and Adelina Domingues. Captain celery 21:25, 21 August 2007 (UTC)Captain celery

New claim

There is a woman still living in Manaus, Amazon, Brazil, her name is Maria Amelia Costa dos Santos, she was born in May 15th 1888, as of this moment she is 119 and 94 days old, which would make her the oldest person currently living. I think the oldest living people page needs updating. I even have the newspaper article here. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Belinhausa (talk • contribs) 21:47:44, August 19, 2007 (UTC).

Sorry, but without any proof or whatsoever this is an unvalidated claim, so no chance at all really of getting her listed. Extremely sexy 22:09, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I guess it's nice to be gullible and believe everything you read. Neal 06:10, 20 August 2007 (UTC)