In numerous editions from the 1960s through the 1980s,
Guinness stated thatNo single subject is more obscured by vanity, deceit, falsehood, and deliberate fraud than the extremes of human longevity. This caveat notwithstanding,
Guinness at the same time listed a Canadian named Pierre Joubert as the oldest person to have ever lived, with supposedly "irrefutable" documentary proof showing he had been born in 1701 and died in 1814 – it was later discovered that a father born in 1701 and his son born in 1732 had been conflated, and Joubert has been removed from lists of supercentenarians. In another case, Lucy Hannah, previously regarded as having reached age 117, had her verification removed in 2020 following the discovery of additional documents. Despite demographic evidence of the known extremes of modern longevity, stories in otherwise reliable sources still surface regularly, stating that these extremes have been exceeded. Responsible, modern, scientific validation of human longevity requires investigation of records following an individual from birth to the present (or to death); purported longevity claims far outside the demonstrated records regularly fail such scrutiny. Actuary Walter G. Bowerman stated that ill-founded longevity assertions originate mainly in remote, underdeveloped regions, among non-literate peoples, with only family testimony available as evidence. This means that people living in areas of the world with historically more comprehensive resources for record-keeping have tended to hold more claims to longevity, regardless of whether or not individuals in other parts of the world have lived longer. In the transitional period of record-keeping, records tend to exist for the wealthy and upper-middle classes, but are often spotty and nonexistent for the middle classes and the poor. In the
United States, birth registration did not begin in
Mississippi until 1912 and was not universal until 1933. Hence, in many longevity cases, no actual birth record exists. This type of case is classified by gerontologists as "partially validated".
Proximate records Since some cases were recorded in a census or in other reliable sources, obtainable evidence may complete full verification. •
Maggie Barnes: Barnes claimed to be 117 at her death on 19 January 1998. Barnes, who was born to a former slave and married a
tenant farmer, had fifteen children, 11 of whom preceded her in death. This test does not prove a person's age, but does winnow out typical pension-claim longevity exaggerations and spontaneous claims that a certain relative is over 150. • Hanna Barysevich: Barysevich claimed to have been 118. This can be neither verified nor disproven from
Belarusian records. The claim is demographically
possible but incompletely verified. •
Pasikhat Dzhukalaeva: In 2004,
The Moscow Times reported that Dzhukalayeva, of
Chechnya, claimed to have been born in 1881 (age 122). The claim is
possible but incompletely verified. Her death has not been reported since that time, so no age greater than 122 has been verifiably claimed. • Susie Brunson:
Ebony magazine reported in 1973 that she was in good health at 102 years old, the first major claim of her longevity. She is later mentioned in 1975, when various newspapers claimed that she was celebrating her 105th birthday. An article in the
Spokesman-Review claims Brunson received a call from President Ronald Reagan on her 113th birthday in 1983 (and many other papers claim that Brunson's birthday was attended by New York Congressman
Raymond J McGrath, dubbing her the oldest person in the nation), and other articles written about her longevity appear later on. Her obituaries appear in
Star-News newspaper and
The New York Times. Her family claimed that she was born 25 December 1870 and lived to age 123, dying in late November 1994. ==Reports with complete date of birth==