Can this age at burial be correct?

[patchwitch]

From the  National Burial Index

Ann MCDONALD age 105

buried 30 October 1814 Cleasby, Yorkshire (North Riding) St. Peter

[davidft]

Yes it could be correct, it is what the register actually says.

However the only way to be sure would be to trace her all the way back to her birth - any chance of doing that ?

[Viktoria]

My Mother in law died aged 105, just three and a half  years ago. I know medicine has advanced so much in all the years between that entry and 2013but M-in-L never had an operation, and was only hospitalised a few days before she died.
She was wonderfully looked after by her daughter for   15 years.
But it was hard, she would not let anyone else assist her and as her daughter was74 it was a burden but one carried uncomplainingly.
It runs in the family, M in L looked after her mother and she looked after hers, and my sister in law will be cared for by her daughter. Sadly that daughter is not married and it will end there.
                           Viktoria.

 

[chempat]

Unlikely to be an accurate age:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3062986/

This mentions work in the 1870's with no-one verified as being older than 103 at death.

Deaths June quarter  1870
 Jacob William Luning age 103    Woolwich   

3. Thoms W. The Longevity of Man: Its Facts and Its Fictions. With a prefatory letter to Prof. Owen, C.B., F.R.S. on the limits and frequency of exceptional cases. London, UK: F. Norgate; 1879.

[patchwitch]

However the only way to be sure would be to trace her all the way back to her birth - any chance of doing that ?

That is the only mention I have of her, I don't know where she was born or if she was married. I only really picked it out because of the age and her name..... wondered if she could be the mother or sister or aunt of my relative Alexander MacDonald who married Ann Rain in Kirkby Ravensworth in 1750 and had 4 children baptised at Cleasby between 1753 and 1760. I suppose the Ann buried at Cleasby could be Ann Rain as I have no death or burial for her. In that case the 105 probably isn't correct as she would have been in her late 50s when the youngest child was born.

I will need to find the register and check the transcription is accurate then see if there is any parish chest material that could help. Something else to keep me by when we take a holiday to North Yorkshire!

[BumbleB]

Is this what you want?  No doubt at all about the entry!! 

[stanmapstone]

There is a whole topic on RootsChat  Re: People who lived to be a hundred years old in 19thC, were there many? http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=225858.0

Stan

[Rena]

I wonder if she was linked with the MacDonalds who fought with the English king in the 18th century Scottish Highland uprisings and who then moved down to North Riding of Yorkshire, eventually buying the Bosville Estate.

[patchwitch]

Is this what you want?  No doubt at all about the entry!!

Thank you, that's the one that I want <lol> No doubt at all about the transcription, just about the accuracy of the original entry then. We do tend to be a long-lived lot..... My Grandmother was 99 when she died and always said that God didn't want her and the Devil dare not take her on. We have quite a few women lived into their 90s, they either died in infancy or childbed or in very old age.

With the earliest I can get a confirmed event for the family I do wonder about the '45 rebellion, but with a common name and no place of origin it can't be confirmed yet. Family stories passed down indicate some involvement and attachment to the Bowes-Lyons family. I can confirm that on two other tree stems but not the MacDonald line. It does seem that I am connected to the '45 in more ways than I would like.

The aftermath of the '45 is well known of course and it could be that Alexander came south for a better life.