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It is not uncommon for multiple persons (even within our own lifetimes) to live to 95 or more (even over 100). I have known a host of them personally and then, through the media over the years, we learn of others (e.g., celebrities, entertainers, politicians, just common everyday folks) who reached or even passed 100. I have some in my greater family tree who are already deceased that lived past 95 and then some still alive who are that age or older. And I'm sure so do a goodly number of other people know of such people personally.
If you go to old cemeteries you tend to find many more graves of children/young people than you do in newer ones, but you also find some very old people as well. High infant mortality and infectious diseases like measles, diptheria, polio, influenza, yellow fever, etc killed a great many younger people and lowered life expectancy. People who survived infancy and lived most of their lives in small rural communities stood a good chance of avoiding many of the more common diseases and living a long time.
The last veterans of the Civil War died in the 1950s, so it's entirely plausible that people born into slavery in the 1960s would have been alive in the 1950s and 1960s. The GAR (Union veterans organization) held its last national encampment in 1949, and was only dissolved in 1956 when its last member, Albert Woolson, passed.
Without trying to make any claim that I know for sure that any of the people currently mentioned in the media (or links posted by anyone in this topic) are posting false birth certificates or other papers, I need to emphasize some truth that is known only if you have personal experience with it: I personally knew a woman, born in Austria-Hungary (or so they thought), who was a very distant cousin of mine - and she probably wasn't even aware of her true birth date (and neither did I, at the time). Now, before you even start with it, like "how can someone be unaware of his/her birth or even doubt it", hold your horses.
I was always puzzled how can people even not know when they were born or how can there be a dispute about one's age, or how come that some people might falsely think about their true age only to be disproved once a very detailed search or some third party "reveals" the truth.
A personal experience helped me to see certain things from a different angle and I hope that some posters might think of it as well once they hear a real-life story example concerning one's age.
A woman in question is dead for four years at this point, however, but what's interesting for this story is the fact that she was born in early 20th century. What's also interesting is that she was once claimed to be among the oldest people on some local news, in late 2000s. What's less known and what was definitely withheld by the most closest relatives (and unknown to me either) is that she wasn't that old - in fact she was 12 years younger.
The very unfortunate truth about her past is that she actually had two older sisters who died. Oldest sister died upon birth, or so it seems - since she wasn't mentioned anywhere shortly after birth. Another sister of hers died during WWI, to be exact. She herself knew about it and said that she was named after her older sister. She was much younger than what was claimed. How did it happen? Well, her parents never officially fully went through the (detailed) legal procedure when a person (in this case - a child) dies. At these times, you didn't have computerized systems and administration was actually worse than it is today.
She only has the same name as her two sisters - who both had the same name. This was quite common some 100 years ago for parents to name their newborn child the same way they named the child who died at young age.
Her closest relatives revealed a family story to me once she was dead for over two years, when I paid them a visit and started a topic about her longevity. She was quite close to a centenarian but in fact she wasn't one, yet local media, regional media and even the reputed world officials actually "verified" her age. I asked how can they verify it and they said that they ask for written proofs of her life, papers, certificates. She had a birth certificate claiming the same year at least from her age of 9 - which is the stupidest thing about the Administration of Yugoslavia indeed. However, you should take other things in consideration as well - she was illiterate and she had very slim record of any employment throughout her age, as well as very few official medical or any other records. The system practically had very few reasons to be concerned about her age, especially once she was an adult.
Why did her children keep mum about it, once they found out the truth? I don't know, it could be for the attention, but doubt it, because I really doubt that it's because of an occasional birthday cake - although I can't exclude that some people might lie about their age for that reason, just like people lie for many other reasons and about many other things/topics. Her husband lived a very long age as well, so her relatives might have kept mum about the truth once they became aware of it since local media mentioned her case in the media shortly before the death of her husband. Her husband was claimed to be 8 years younger, when in fact he was a bit older and lived a few years shorter - unless his birth certificate was wrong as well (which I can't verify).
In fact, her own children didn't know about this whole issue (and multiple birth certificates) UNTIL they started to sort things after their mother applied to inherit her deceased husband's retirement/pension. Among the papers they required, it was to bring a birth certificate. This is a common procedure for just about everything in Bosnia. Her children actually had to "prove" that their mother was married to their father - which also involved bringing wedding certificate/papers as well.
Their mother regularly took wrong birth certificate since she was illiterate, numerous ages-old Yugoslavs were illiterate prior to WW2. The error was obviously made many decades before she even applied for pension.
She had used the same birth certificate of her first-born sister who died shortly after birth and her other, same-named-and-deceased sister probably did the same (or her parents did), all of which happened before she was even born. That's due to administrative error and lenience. Her parents were both illiterate as well. Yugoslavia underwent massive re-education in post-ww2 period, since vast majority of population were illiterate. There was a well-known education program for adults in their 40s, 50s and so on and some popular TV shows in Communist era have touched this subject in mostly humorous way.
Her children (all three of them) were well-educated and two out of three of them got displaced due to war. They underwent the procedure to help their mother achieve her pension, and this is how they found out that there are MULTIPLE birth certificates, signed on the same name, spanning on a long-year difference. This is how they placed all the pieces of a puzzle together, by recalling that their mother was mentioning that she had an older sister whose name she bears after her death, but what she herself didn't know is that there was another sister who probably died at birth, even before her deceased sister was born...
Upon making a major search, primarily because of war (since her wedding papers got destroyed or lost during a devastating war in the 1990s), they made a detailed search in multiple places. This is how they found numerous information, including information that they would otherwise not even be aware of.
Yes... and as a child I was fascinated listening to the accounts of electricity, automobiles, the depression, turn of the century life on the farm...
It helped that my first car at the age of 12 bought with money I earned was a Model A Ford...
My only regret and there was nothing I could do at the time was when I was 10... my 85 year old Grandfather made one last trip home and he invited me to go and I REALLY wanted to go.
Sadly, my parents and Grandmother said I was too young and there would be other opportunities later... well, within 24 months... that entire generation was gone and there was no there there to go see.
Yes... and as a child I was fascinated listening to the accounts of electricity, automobiles, the depression, turn of the century life on the farm...
It helped that my first car at the age of 12 bought with money I earned was a Model A Ford...
My only regret and there was nothing I could do at the time was when I was 10... my 85 year old Grandfather made one last trip home and he invited me to go and I REALLY wanted to go.
Sadly, my parents and Grandmother said I was too young and there would be other opportunities later... well, within 24 months... that entire generation was gone and there was no there there to go see.
I used to volunteer at a nursing home after school, back when I was in Junior high. Many of the residents were very old, though the vast majority were still in at least fair enough health and clear minds. There are a few women I recall in particular that would talk much about their lives. Two of them were ninety-seven and the other was ninety-four or so. So, they were born in or around 1892-93. All three of them grew up in the area so it was highly interesting to hear them discuss what it was like for them growing up in the same place I did---and this was a generation older than my own grandparents (all my great-grandparents had died by this time).
One had been a school teacher and I attended her 97th birthday---I brought her a book. She was remarkably youthful for her advanced age. She lived for another two years, died just shy of 100. But, the stories she would tell---it was fascinating!
My grandmother is still alive, and although she wasn't born before 1900, she was born not long afterwards.
Margarette Oldach (maiden name Stiles), was born in 1909 in Brockport, NY...and she is still alive here in Phoenix, AZ at the age of 106!
She still has mental clarity and is the oldest resident of her assisted living complex. I still marvel at all the events & changes she has experienced in her lifetime!
She was 2 years old at the time of the Titanic sinking.
She remembers taking a horse and buggy to elementary school.
She was a 9 year old girl when we won World War I.
She was a teenager when the family got their first radio.
She was in her 30's during World War II.
And she's still alive at age 106, and I visit her at least a few times a week...our family is truly blessed!
On the other hand, my kids marvel at some of my stories (I'm 50 years old) about the days before microwave ovens, DVD or VHS players, cell phones, and the Internet!
My grandmother, who was born in 1920 would tell me stories of not only her childhood, but stories that her grandmother and great-grandmother would tell her.
Her great-grandmother Lillie lived to 98 (born Sept. 1838 in Rhinebeck, NY and died in July, 1937, day after my grandmother's birthday).
Ms. Lillie told my grandmother of when there were still farms on Manhattan Island, north of about 100th street I think...and when the first trains began to run thru the area as well as general life in the city in the pre-Civil War era. I was so glad to be able to hear these stories from my grandmother, passed down some four generations!
Not very many people lived to be 98 back then, either.
Really only in the last 50 years or so has the number of centenarians grown substantially in number, especially among those who reach over age 110, which used to be extremely rare. The 1840 US Census was the first to count especially any resident age 100 or more, which was used as a study on the US population of centenarians in the 1840s, one of the first of its kind.
In 1864, author Rev. Hillard and photographer set out to find and interview, photograph the supposedly last six or so living veterans of the American Revolutionary War. The Last Men of the Revolution - Archiving Early America
They found six of them, all of whom were by then over age 100, the oldest being 105 and most were still in at least fairly good health.
The oldest person I knew passed away a few years ago at age 104...
She was a retired Nevada school teacher and had the best stories... at age 100 she was still flying alone to her little condo she bought in Hawaii.
She grew up on a ranch near Minden Nevada and entered a contest with the prize being a new Model T Ford to the person who sold the most Newspaper Subscriptions in the State that year...
She was 12 and won the car... her father and her made the trip to Reno to meet the train and picked it up... he had never driven a car and nor had she... he did crash into the barn yelling Wo like you would to a horse... minor damage.
Anyway, at age 12 she drove to school in her car... no need for a driver's license or car license... only and first woman in the county to own a car.
At age 17 she became the teacher at the one room school house she attended... she taught 50 years.
Quite a story and she had the newspaper clipping with her picture picking up her car... amazing woman.
I attended her 100th birthday party in Reno and their were former students of all ages there and she had taught several generations of some families over the course of 50 years...
I have been very interested in this topic. Not so long ago, I looked up to see the oldest living people and was curious about how many were still technically born in the 19th century.
Of course. My great-grandmother was born in 1884. She died in 1978, aged 94. Her sister, then very elderly, gave me my first set of encyclopedias in about 1967. As women of their day, they trained as schoolteachers, though my great-grandma settled down as a ranch wife. My aunt and uncle still live in the stone ranch house where my grandma (now 96, youngest of three daughters) was born. I can look at very old photos of spots as they were a century ago, and see them as they exist today. I am fond of the pictures of my great-grandma, whom I knew as a tiny and ancient lady, in her formal riding-to-town attire complete to riding crop, with huge brown eyes that seem to take the photographer's measure as he photographs the young matron.
Then again, it was only about twenty years ago my family finally took down the sidesaddles from the harness case. It finally occurred to them that no modern women, most especially my feminist aunt, had any plans to ride that way again. There they hung for seventy years, even as the carriage-room began to double as a second TV room (the TV nestled between the hanging tack and saddlery).
I find it amazing that I, at 51, can phone my grandmother and have her tell me about the Depression and Dust Bowl era. Or about her grandfather and uncles, talking about the Civil War in which they fought (and are depicted in tintypes which we still have). It occurs to me that one day, should I be spared to live so long, I would be among the last people who knew women who grew up fighting for the vote.
Yes, it is like we have a time machine or time portal at our avail to travel through and meet people from the distant past (e.g., from two centuries ago). Imagine having the perspectives they have: they grew up in the later half of the 1800s and have seen the invention of the telephone, electric light, airplane, radio, television, space travel and landing humans on other celestial bodies, computers, the Internet, mobile phones and tablets, surgeries they didn't know in their time such as heart transplants & face transplants, and so much much more).
An interesting article on the changing nature of tracking the world's oldest living people.
Quote:
As the oldest person in the world, Gertrude Weaver was making the best of her time in the limelight. When I called the 116-year-old Arkansas resident two days into her reign on a Friday in early April, she was resting after a couple of television appearances and a half-dozen phone interviews. With the help of her 73-year-old granddaughter, she offered up theories about her longevity (“hard work, love God,” as her granddaughter put it) and even invited President Obama to her next birthday party.
Kathy Langley, the administrator at Silver Oaks Health & Rehabilitation Center, the Camden facility where Weaver was living, estimated that Weaver was getting more than 50 calls a day from media outlets wanting to speak to her. “It’s somewhat overwhelming,” she said, asking me to call back Monday. When I did, I learned that Weaver had died that morning.
Weaver was part of what is perhaps the world’s most wizened sorority, one open only to those who were once the oldest living person on Earth. When I looked into everyone who’d had that distinction, I found that more people than ever are clustering at the outer edge of human aging and that the tenure of the world’s oldest living person isn’t as long as it used to be. Better record-keeping and longer lifespans have helped lead to quite a crowd.
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