Would you believe I have a 114-year-old ancestor?

Question

I just started a tiny bit of genealogy research. I found one guy who lived from 1770-1884.

Um... do you think I should trust this as I research these people? Or, if it were your research, would you assume there was some error in there?

It's not a totally unreasonable age and I do have some long-lived people in my ancestry, but do you genealogy experts find people to be that old centuries ago?

I got this information from some research my great aunt did a while ago. I know she put a lot of money into it, but I don't know what research methods she used or if she hired anyone. But it wasn't one of those "untrustworthy online pedigrees."

Answer 1

It is certainly possible, just not very...let's say...easy to believe. Living conditions were far worse in the past...a 114-year-old guy in the past would be like a 200-year-old guy now! If I were to wager I'd say the research was wrong.

Answer 2

It's pretty common that a researcher will combine the records of a father and a son who shared the same name. I came across a published genealogy from a fairly well-respected genealogy magazine where someone combined the mother and her daughter-in-law into the same person on the tree and had the mother giving birth to kids when she was 64. That's even more incredible than believing someone lived to 114.

Anyway, read enough online trees and you'll become a very good skeptic. The trees posted online are about 80% reasonable and 15% ugggh. Whether you have a good one or not would be found by retracing their research and seeing if it really happened that way.

Answer 3

My paternal great grand parents celebrated their 75th anniversary last year hes now 99 and she's 97 even though at the party she insisted she was 92 and that her ORIGINAL birth certificate we had there was wrong... seriously, at that age why keep shaving off 4 years!!! He is a cotton farmer and she is a homemaker, they still live in their house by themselves and he still farms his own land. Her mother lived to be 110 and his lived to be 105 and both died from accidents in the house (one overdosed on meds b/c she miscounted her pills, and the other fell in the shower and hit her head) Both my meme and papa's fathers died around 80, but they both smoked and drank. A lot. My grandmother killed my paternal grandfather (seriously), and she was a 3pack a day smoker and a liter a day vodka drinker... otherwise I'd say my family is extremely long lived. Hopefully, I know my maternal grandparents lived a long time but I've never really asked. I'm going to have to find out now!

P.S. My "meme & pawpaw) live in Gomez, Tx. Population 2! haha they have their own population sign! Must be the water there.

I when I first moved to Stephenville, Tx, my friend and I were going to Wal-Mart to get some things from our dorms. We were walking through the parking lot behind a man who greeted a woman that looked about 60. He asked where her husband was and she replied "oh he's mowing the lawn". After we passed her and she had walked down a few cars, the guy turns around to us and says "can you believe that woman is 95 yrs old!?! her husband is 111!" I was flabbergasted, she really didn't look a day over 60, and her husband was mowing the lawn in 115 degree weather.... wow, I want some of what they've got!!!

Ok those are my old people stories.

So it's not impossible.

Answer 4

Just a little note that happened to me. When I changed to a 4 year college back in the dark ages of 1972, I had to have my birth certificate to show I was an American citizen. When I got it, I had to have some corrections made. You see, it said I was born in Missouri in 1848 --which would have made me 124 years old!!--instead of the actual 1948.

If your ancestor's records were transcribed from something else--like a ship passengers' list that originally was handwritten, or a census done the same way back then--I'd bet there was a misreading somewhere. Some of the fancy handwriting they used back then (where everybody was taught to make their letters the same way as their neighbors) would make that totally feasible. It is sometimes hard to read the "original" documents online now--even zoomed to 125%--so imagine if you had to figure out the ink version.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oldest_people
Jeanne Calment --122 years 164 days--b. 21 February 1875 --d. 4 August 1997-- F --Oldest documented and fully validated supercentenarian ever

Sarah Knauss-- 119 years 97 days--b. 24 September 1880--d. 30 December 1999-- F-- Oldest in U.S. history, oldest recognized in world 1998-–99

Still living: Edna Parker --114 years, 245 days --F--b. April 20, 1893 --Oldest person in the world (since August 13, 2007).Lives in Indiana.

Tomoji Tanabe-- 112 years, 94 days--b. September 18, 1895 Oldest man in the world (since 24 January 2007). Lives in Japan.
Lives in Indiana, US

Answer 5

In addition to all these suggestions, it could even be something as simple as the numbers were transposed when that researcher posted that info on line. Maybe it was supposed to be 1848 instead of 1884. That much, at least could be fairly easy to verify if by some chance there is a record of him doing anything after 1848 (marriage, buying/selling property, etc). If all info on him seems to stop at 1848, then it may be that is because that is when he actually died.

So much on on-line family trees are wrong. I have seen lines of my family posted by other people I don't even know who are also connected to that line, that would have something like Joe was born in 1888, mother Sally was born 1880, father Tom died 1884. Obviously, Sally could not have been 8 years old when she gave birth to Joe and Joe could not have been born 4 years after his father died. I find that accurate dates in on-line trees are a really big problem sometimes.

Answer 6

Among my 'cousins' was the man in his mid 80s, who kept telling the nurse at the hospital that he needed to get out, to go take care of mom/dad. It took a local nurse (who knew the family) to reassure the 'new' nurse... no.. he was not losing it, and yes, both his parents WERE still living. His mom lived to be 104, his father 110, and extremely solid documentation on this.
It does occur. This couple lived until the 1960s with better medical care (and at home until both deaths.
Without the documentation, I would not trust such a claim. Almost certain to be an error, most likely two men of the same name, whose records have become overlapped.
On the other hand... my rule of thumb is being skeptical on ANY data, without some good sources behind it.

Answer 7

I'd bet 10:1 against. If you live in the area, you might look for newspaper articles on his 100th, 105th and 110th birthday, and his death. Anyone that old would make the papers. IF you don't, someone in the area might look them up for you if you posted on th eappropriate GenForum county page.

If he was in the USA, you could check his birth year on the 1850 - 1880 censuses. If it was 1770 on all four it would sound more reasonable; that or he would be consistently mistaken.

I have a couple of ancestors who lived to be 100, but 110+ is incredibly rare. I'd bet the birth year was wrong.

Answer 8

Not all records are 100% accurate. Especially in the census. Its only as accurate as the census takers. A lot of times names were spelled wrong and ages were transcribed wrong. So I agree try the papers to see if it was mentioned in the area where he lived. If he indeed lived that long there would have been some articles to celebrate 114 years.

Answer 9

I would try to find the earliest document that I could. I've found that when I check the census reports the ages of certain people vary by as much as 20 years on different census reports. So, it depends on which document listed his age or year of birth. I had an ancestor that lived to be 103 according to various documents. He was born in 1795 and died in 1898.

Answer 10

Well, LOL Congratulations!!!!

Depending where this ancestor lived. Some tribal elders reached very ripe old ages, but if they were living in our then civilised societies, a person that age should be traceable.

Nothing is impossible as anything is possible, but whether it is probable? I imagine you need more circumstantial information to back up with diet, climate, lifestyle etc.