Oldest person found in a census?

[cristeen]

The oldest person in my tree was my 3 x great grandfather's younger sister who was 103 when she died according to burial records and newspaper articles on her centenary and death. However baptism and census records show she was born three years earlier, she actually made 100 by four days!

[Greenvale]

Cristeen, if she was born 3 years earlier doesn't that make her 106?

[cristeen]

Cristeen, if she was born 3 years earlier doesn't that make her 106?

You spotted my deliberate mistake! Yes she was born 3 years later I believe, certainly baptised 3 years later

[Regorian]

Not a record breaker but my grandfather had a brother (died at 42) with 5 children. First, female died within one year, second, male died at 43, third, female died at 93, fourth, male died at 68 and fifth, female died at 104.

[bibliotaphist]

Not a record breaker but my grandfather had a brother (died at 42) with 5 children. First, female died within one year, second, male died at 43, third, female died at 93, forth, male died at 68 and fifth, female died at 104.

It's always seemed slightly incredible to me that it's quite possible to have two siblings dying in non-adjacent centuries - e.g. Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother who of course died aged 101 in the C21st but who had an older sister who died in the C19th.

[bibliotaphist]

I've tried various URL-hack searches for exact years of birth using Ancestry's UK censuses collection (i.e. by manipulating the two highlighted numbers in the search URL https://www.ancestry.co.uk/search/categories/1851uki/?birth=1746&birth_x=0-0-0) and found something slightly odd.

For every single census year, there are a surprisingly high number of entries for people aged 105, and zero entries for anyone aged 106 or older.

Census year	Aged 105 exactly	Aged > 105
1841	21	0
1851	19	0
1861	8	0
1871	16	0
1881	9	0
1891	11	0
1901	10	0
1911	6	0

Some of these apparent 105-year-olds are certainly mistranscriptions. But strange that there aren't any mistranscriptions coming out at 106, or 110.

I'm wondering why this hard cut-off appears consistently in every transcribed census. My thoughts are that it's either that 105 was a popular number to exaggerate ones own age or the age of an elderly relative to (suitably ancient-sounding but believable?) and/or that Ancestry did some extra checking of any transcribed records with an age of 106 or above to remove obviously-mistranscribed outliers.

The alternative explanation would be that in those years a relatively large number of people did just happen to live to that age and not a year longer...

(In the 1841 census of course you'd expect to see more 105-year-olds because of age rounding.)

I tried the same thing with some of the federal U.S. censuses in FamilySearch and found a very similar odd effect there, except that the age for the hard cut-off appears to be 120(!!) rather than 105... e.g. https://www.familysearch.org/search/record/results?count=20&query=%2Bbirth_year%3A1749-1749~%20%2Brecord_type%3A(3)&collection_id=1438024

[Regorian]

The date range of my example was between 1862, fathers birth year and 1995, death year of his youngest daughter.

I have two others although not centenarians. In the Overseers records was a charge for a shroud and burial of a 'phile' Griffiths 1757. I assumed for a long time that this referred to a daughter Tacy born in 1747. Turned out not to be so. She died unmarried in 1827. A very bright Rootschatter suggested it was a Philip Griffiths buried at Llantilio Crosseny aged 97. Until mid 18th Century, it was common in our family to be buried in llandogo where the family was firmly established in the late 17th Century, wherever they had gone since.

Another one is a William Edwards born 1779/1780. He married into our family. Couldn't find him in any Censuses until the 1871 the year he died. His son and family lived in Five Acres, West Dean, Mon. (Gloucestershire). He appears as a lodger aged 92.

[jbml]

I have no centenarians to report; but my great x4 grandfather Anthony Holcomb[e] was born in 1792 and only just failed to make the 1891 census, dying in 1890 at the grand old age of 98!

[Jebber]

The oldest in my tree is a second cousin born 3 March 1901,  died aged 110 on the 5 May 2011.

I don’t intend to compete with him.