The Gerontology Research Group validates 117-year old Delphia Welford (1875-1992) of Humboldt, Tennessee, as the African-American Longevity Recordholder of the United States of America.
Photo courtesy of Mrs. Delphia Boykin.
Apr. 29, 2023; The Gerontology Research Group is delighted to announce the validation of Mrs. Delphia Welford of Humboldt, Tennessee, USA. Following one of the most thoroughful and careful examination using multiple pieces of evidence and documentation spanning from her early life until 1992, we recognize that Delphia Welford was 117 years old. The investigation of her age, which had begun as early as in 2016, and even earlier than that – along with the American SSA Study, proves beyond reasonable doubt that Delphia Welford had been born in Okolona, Chickasaw County, Mississippi, on Sept. 9, 1875, had one son Leo Henry Mathis (1896-1966), moved to Humboldt, Gibson County, Tennessee along with the rest of her family before 1900, and died in Humboldt on Nov. 14, 1992, at the age of 117 years, 66 days.
.
Delphia Welford was originally among Social Security Administration study cases, conducted by Bert Kestenbaum and B. Renee Ferguson. The case re-emerged in 2016 with the work of our most respected GRG Correspondent for Greece, Mr. Ilias Leivaditis, who was the first to lay down hypothesis that Delphia Welford may have been much older than her later life claim. Subsequent research provided only more evidence in support of this.
.
The validation of Delphia Welford changes the history of American longevity, as, in the light of the GRG revelations, she has been:
- the Oldest Living American (following the death of 112-year old Orpha Nusbaum on Mar. 30, 1988 until her own death on Nov. 14, 1992). This means the status of the Oldest Living American was never shared by Elzona Maxey (1875-1988), Alphaeus Philemon Cole (1876-1988), Birdie May Vogt (1876-1989), and Ettie Mae Greene (1977-1992), who until 2023 were believed to consecutively hold the title). Following Delphia Welford’s death, the status of Oldest Living American was inherited by Margaret Skeete (1878-1994).
- the Longevity Recordholder of the USA (surpassing Augusta Holtz in 1990; until her age was surpassed by Sarah Knauss in 1998)
- the African-American Longevity Recordholder for the USA (replacing Susannah Mushatt Jones (1899-2016), with her age being chronologically unrepeated for the next 31+ years)
- the oldest person to have been born in Mississippi (replacing Betty Wilson (1890-2006) and Susie Gibson (1890-2006))
- the third person in history to eclipse the lifespan of 115 years (behind Augusta Holtz and Jeanne Calment)
- the second person in history to eclipse the lifespan of 116 and 117 years (behind Jeanne Calment)
The detailed report on the case validation of Delphia Welford will be presented at the supercentenarian seminar in Paris later this year.
Waclaw Jan Kroczek, Oliver Trim, & Robert Young
Gerontology Research Group
The Gerontology Research Group validates Ophelia Burks (1903-2018) as the Oldest American and longevity record-holder of Louisiana
Mar. 18, 2023 ; The Gerontology Research Group is delighted to announce the validation of Mrs. Ophelia Burks of Haughton, Louisiana, USA. She was born in Haughton, Bossier Parish, Louisiana, USA on Oct. 25, 1903. She never graduated from the primary school as her family didn’t had enough money to buy a school supplies for each of their children. She married a local farmer, Prince Burks who died in 1989 at the age of 94. The couple had five children. She worked for 50 cents a day during the Great Depression. Ophelia Burks died in Haughton, Louisiana, USA, on September 27, 2018, at the age of 114 years, 337 days.
Burks’s age was verified by Robert Young, Waclaw Jan Kroczek, Johnnie Johnson, Shirley Johns, Anri Kusaku, and Oliver Trim, and validated by the GRG on 7 January 2020. Her validation was an extremely difficult task, and the best of GRG experts took part in it. After almost two years of research, the material amassed on Ophelia Burks case was fit on 85 pages of validation document. The GRG experts looked deep into the family’s history, trying to solve all the puzzles and leave as few blank spots as possible. Despite the difficulty, the evidence obtained was enough to conclude the validation process as meeting the modern scientific age validation criteria.
The validation of Ophelia Burks recognizes her folowing statuses:
- The Oldest Living American (following the death of Delphine Gibson on May 9, 2018 until Sept. 27, 2018.
- The oldest person in the history of Louisiana (previous record-holder Maggie Renfro (1895-2010)
- The last surviving American person born in 1903
Maria Branyas Morera, the World’s Oldest Person, celebrates her 116th birthday
Mar. 4, 2023; Maria Branyas Morera has turned 116 in her residence in Olot, Catalonia, Spain. Branyas became the world’s oldest person in January following the death of French nun Lucile Randon at 118. She automatically inherited the title according to a calculation that has been compiled for over 20 years by the Gerontological Research Group of Guinness World Records. She was born on March 4, 1907 in San Francisco, California. She survived the First and Second World Wars and the Spanish Civil War. She came to Catalonia as a child. She lived in Barcelona, Banyoles, Girona, Calonge, and Sant Antoni i Palol de Revardit. In 1931, she married Joan Moret, a doctor from Llagostera in Gironès.
For about 20 years, Branyas has lived in the Santa Maria del Tura Residence in Olot. There, in May 2020, she broke another record: at the age of 113, she became the oldest person in the world to survive Covid-19 infection. Her age was officially validated by the Gerontology Research Group on June 28, 2021.
According to the research by the Gerontology Research Group, Maria Branyas Morera is the 26th person in modern history to eclipse the lifespan of 116 years, and the ninth to do so in Europe.
Josefine Ollmann (1908-2022) becomes the oldest validated supercentenarian in Germany
Feb. 13, 2023; The Gerontology Research Group is honored, following the splendid research action by our GRG-Germany Team and after cordial cooperation with the family, to announce the validation of Mrs. Josefine Ollmann of Itzehoe, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, who, being older than previously validated longevity record holder of Germany, Mrs. Maria Laqua (1889-2002), is to be considered the new oldest person in Germany’s history.
Josefine Ollmann was born in Munich, Kingdom of Bavaria, German Empire (now Bavaria, Germany) on 11 November 1908. Her father was an engineer, so the family often moved to other places like the Netherlands, Upper Silesia, and Berlin. She had a younger brother. Ollmann’s 10th birthday in 1918 occured the same day World War I ended. When she finished university in Wittenberg, Ollmann was the top of the class. She got an apprenticeship as a laborant, and worked at the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institut in Berlin. Ollmann married a lawyer in 1939. The couple had two children, a son and a daughter. After World War II, they fled from Greifswald to Kellinghusen in order to escape the Red Army. Her husband died in 1952.
Ollmann run a diary and played Scrabble until the age of 100. She lived in her own house until the age of 107. On 30 January 2022, at the age of 113 years, 80 days, Ollmann surpassed the age of Mathilde Mange, becoming the oldest woman ever to live in Germany. Beforehand, she surpassed the age of Maria Laqua, then the oldest validated supercentenarian in Germany. In February 2022, she survived COVID-19, making her one of the oldest known survivors of the disease, as well as the oldest person in Germany who contracted and recovered from the disease.
Josefine Ollmann died on 16 July 2022 in a retirement home in Itzehoe, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, at the age of 113 years, 247 days. At the time of her death, she had four grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. Josefine Ollmann was the oldest living person in Germany between years 2020-2022 and she was the last surviving German person born in 1908.
Her age was verified by the GRG-Germany Correspondents’ Team: Stefan Jamin, Ulrich Koch, and Thomas Breining, and validated by the GRG on 13 February 2023.
Tamara Krutikov (1912-2022), becomes the first validated supercentenarian in the history of Serbia
Feb. 12, 2023; The Gerontology Research Group is honored to announce the validation of Mrs. Tamara Krutikov (1912-2022) of Serbia. We take the pleasure to emphasize that the GRG Team has made the significant step forward into learning the history of longevity of a completely new country, until today a virgin territory in the study. Mrs. Tamara Krutikov is the first validated supercentenarian in Serbia by the modern age validation criteria. Furthermore, she is the third validated supercentenarian born in present-day Ukraine, behind Goldie Michelson (validated in 2015) and Tekla Juniewicz (validated in 2018). The validation is a beautiful example of cooperation between researchers and family members, as well as openness to engage into international research effort which was concluded in full success. This research achievement done by Messrs. Dejan Vujic, Boris Vlchek, and Igor Bashyrov even upon the ongoing war in Ukraine. The maximum research effort done by these gentlemen is very appreciated.
Krutikov was born in Yekaterinoslav, Russian Empire (present-day Dnipro, Ukraine) on 27 March 1912. She had no brothers and sisters, she was an only child. When she was 7 years old, she left Ukraine with her parents and moved to Turkey, soon to the island of Kınalıada and then to Serbia, where she later married and started a family. Together with her husband Nikolaj, she had three daughters: Natalia (1941), Irina (1946) and Zinaida (1950). Until she was 94, she lived alone, later her daughter Zinaida returned from Russia to take care of her. By nationality she was Russian. She was a professor of music and French, played the piano and played tennis. She spoke Russian, French, Greek, Turkish, Macedonian, English and Serbian. She died in Belgrade on July 6, 2022 at the age of 110 years, 101 days.
Edith “Edie” Ceccarelli, celebrates her 115th birthday.
Feb. 5, 2023; The Gerontology Research Group is honored to report the 115th birthday of Mrs. Edith “Edie” Ceccarelli, a resident of Willits, Mendocino County, in the state of California, USA.
Mrs. Ceccarelli was born in Willits, California, USA, on February 5, 1908. She was the first of seven children born to Italian immigrants Agostino and Maria Recagno. She married Elmer “Brick” Keenan and moved to Santa Rosa, California, where he worked as a pressman for the Santa Rosa Democrat. When he retired after 36 years, the couple returned to Willits. After her husband’s death in 1984, she married Charles Ceccarelli in 1986. He died in 1990. At the time of her 110th birthday, Ceccarelli lived in Willits, California. She lived in her own home until the age of 107, after which she moved into a senior living facility. She became a supercentenarian in February 2018, and celebrated her 111th birthday in February 2019. She was still capable of walking with the aid of a walker as of her 114th birthday in 2022. At the beginning of 2022, Edith Ceccarelli was the second-oldest validated living person in California (behind Mila Mangold), the fourth-oldest validated living person in the United States (behind Bessie Hendricks, Mila Mangold, and Irene Dunham), and the second-oldest validated person ever born in California (behind Maria Branyas Morera).
Mrs. Ceccarelli’s age was validated by the Gerontology Research Group on Mar. 16, 2022. Following the death of 115-year old Bessie Hendricks of Iowa, Edie Ceccarelli became the oldest living person in the USA. On Feb. 5, 2023, she celebrated her 115th birthday.
Read the whole story under the following link.
Maria Branyas Morera, 115, confirmed as the World’s Oldest Person
Jan. 20, 2023; The Gerontology Research Group is honored to announce that following the death of 118-year-old sister Lucile Randon, the new oldest living person in the world is Mrs. Maria Branyas Morera (born March 4, 1907 ) from Olot, Spain.
Maria Branyas Morera was born on March 4, 1907 in San Francisco, California, USA. Her family emigrated to San Francisco in 1906. Later they went to New Orleans, from where in 1915 she went to Olot, Catalonia, Spain. Her father, Joseph Branyas Julia, died of pulmonary tuberculosis at the age of 37, leaving her mother to raise a family of five alone. Maria married in 1931 and had three children. In 2000, at the age of 93, Branyas Morera moved to a nursing home in Olot, where she still lives today.
According to GRG research, she is the second person in Spanish history to reach the age of 115.
Lucile Randon, 118, World’s Oldest Person, dies
Jan. 18, 2023; The Gerontology Research Group is saddened to announce the passing of Lucile Randon (sister Andre), 118, the GWR-validated and GRG-validated World’s Oldest Living Person.
Lucile Randon took her religious vows in 1944, taking the name Andre, and joined the Sisters of Charity (maison des Filles de la charité on rue du Bac in Paris). During World War II, she served as a governess and teacher in various homes. After the war, she worked for 28 years in a hospital in Vichy with orphans and the elderly. Since 2009, she has been living in Toulon in a nursing home for the elderly.
On October 19, 2017, after the death of Honorine Rondello, she became the oldest living person in France.
On June 2, 2019, at the age of 115 years and 111 days, she became the oldest consecrated person in history, taking over this title from the nun Marie-Josephine Gaudette, who died in 2017.
On June 18, 2019, after the death of the Italian Maria Giuseppa Robucci-Nargiso, Lucile Randon became, at the age of 115 years and 127 days, the second oldest living person in the world (after Kane Tanaka) and the oldest in Europe.
On January 16, 2021, she was diagnosed with the SARS-CoV-2 virus. She underwent the illness asymptomatically and, a few days before her 117th birthday, became the oldest person in the world to survive this infection.
On February 11, 2022, as the fourth person in history (behind Jeanne Calment, Sarah Knauss and Kane Tanaka), Lucile Randon turned 118 years old.
On April 19, 2022, after the death of Japanese woman Kane Tanaka, she became the oldest living person in the world.
