Copyright 7996 by
The Cerontological Society of America
The Cerontologist
Vol. 36, No. 6, 783-788
This article summarizes recent findings in a case study of exceptional longevity. C M , a resident
of San Rafael, California, was 114 years old in August 1996. He is the first properly verified
case of a 114-year-old man in human history (although a few women have been known to live
longer). Our investigation of C M continues as we attempt to gather additional information
about his life, family history, and current condition. Here, we consider only two aspects of
this case: its authenticity and its significance in the history of human longevity. We believe
that we have proven that CM's stated age is accurate. Based on the available information, it
also seems a reasonable conjecture that he may be the oldest man alive today and perhaps the
oldest man who has ever lived. This study documents an extreme example of human longevity
and records characteristics of the man's life that may provide clues about the causes of his
exceptional survivorship.
Key Words: Exceptional longevity, Centenarian, Super-centenarian
The Oldest Man Ever?
A Case Study of Exceptional Longevity1
John Wilmoth, PhD,2 Axel Skytthe, MSc,3
Diana Friou, MA,2 and Bernard Jeune, MD 3
CM was born on August 16,1882, in the village of
Skaarup (near Skanderborg), Denmark. He worked
on a farm as a child and then moved to Skanderborg
to become a tailor's apprentice at age 16. In 1903, he
immigrated to the United States, arriving through
Ellis Island in New York harbor but moving immediately to Chicago to live with relatives. In 1905, he
joined the Danish Brotherhood in America, a fraternal organization of immigrants and their descendants. From around 1908 to 1918, he traveled extensively around the western United States (from
Chicago to California), making his living as a tailor.
Around 1918, he returned to Chicago and settled
there on a more permanent basis.
Back in Chicago, CM was married briefly during the
late 1910s and 1920s. The marriage ended in divorce,
and he never remarried. During these years, he
worked as a milkman for the Borden Dairy Company
and operated a small restaurant. In 1923, he joined a
Masonic lodge in Chicago. In 1929, he took a job as a
factory worker for the Continental Can Company,
where he was employed for 21 years. He retired in
1950 and lived for many years thereafter in south
1
The authors wish to thank Maxine Weinstein for help in obtaining a copy
of CM's immigration record from the National Archives in Washington, DC.
Helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper were provided by James
Vaupel and Roger Thatcher. Special thanks to CM himself and to the nurses
and staff of his retirement community, whose help and cooperation made
this study possible.
department of Demography, University of California, Berkeley, with
support from the National Institute on Aging (R01 AG-11552). Address
correspondence to John Wilmoth, PhD, Department of Demography, Program in Population Research, University of California, 2232 Piedmont Avenue, Berkeley, CA 94720-2120.
3
Center for Health and Social Policy, Odense University Medical School,
Odense, Denmark, with support from the Danish Research Councils
(5.20.34.08).
Vol. 36, No. 6,1996
783
Texas, where he enjoyed sailing on Galveston Bay. In
1978, when he was 96 years old, he moved to San
Rafael, California, to live in a retirement community.
He resided in the "independent living" section of that
community for many years, then entered the skilled
nursing facility in 1993, when he was 110 years old.
At present, CM is completely blind and has difficulty hearing. He spends most of his time in bed,
either sleeping or listening to the radio. He can walk
only with the assistance of another person. In other
aspects, however, his physical condition remains
good, with no apparent signs of major degenerative
disease or dementia. His memory and reasoning
abilities also appear to be largely intact, and he frequently displays a sense of humor. He has willingly
participated in a series of interviews conducted
mainly by the first author beginning in March 1995.
The information presented here has been drawn
from those interviews and from various documents.
Verification of Age
Before describing the details of our age verification procedure, it is worth mentioning the history of
how we discovered this case and our original skepticism about it. One of the Danish authors of this
article read a story about CM in a Danish newspaper
and doubted its accuracy. From earlier studies, it was
known that most reports of men above age 110 were
likely to be false (Jeune, 1995; Skytthe & Jeune, 1995).
An initial check in the Danish archives seemed to
confirm the story, however, so a contact was made
with the first author, who called the nursing home
where CM was living and arranged an initial meeting.
From the beginning, all authors were skeptical of
the validity of CM's stated age and became con-
vinced only slowly of its authenticity. Through a
series of interviews, the American authors sought to
extract information about CM's life history that could
be checked against documentary evidence. Documents were gathered on both sides of the Atlantic in
an effort to confirm or disprove CM's reported age.
In most cases, the interviews uncovered information
that was confirmed only later by documentary evidence. In those instances where the interviewers
knew the answer in advance, they asked questions in
a manner to avoid revealing their prior knowledge to
CM.
In verifying the authenticity of a report of exceptional longevity, the first step is to confirm that all
available documents contain or imply the same date
of birth. In this case, all of the written records that we
have found are consistent with the claim that CM is
now 114 years old. Table 1 shows the relevant documents that were found, which all give either an exact
date of birth (always August 16,1882) or an age that is
consistent with this date of birth.
It is worth noting that such documents may not
each be independent sources of information about
CM's current age or date of birth. For example, the
date of birth recorded at the time of his confirmation
may have been taken directly from the birth registration. Similarly, the date contained on the transfer of
Freemasonry membership in 1970 was probably
taken, directly or indirectly, from his 1923 application
to join the Masons (although we were unable to
obtain a copy of the earlier document). This comment
is only a precautionary note, however, since several
of these documents do indeed represent separate
confirmations of his date of birth and span a significant portion of his lifetime (for example, his birth
registration in 1882, the Danish census records in 1890
and 1901, the immigration record in 1903, his application to join the Danish Brotherhood in 1905, the U.S.
census record in 1920, his pension application in 1950,
and the Freemasonry document from 1970).
CM's date of birth (August 16, 1982) is thus confirmed by a series of documents beginning with his
birth registration. In this and similar cases, however,
we must also consider the possibility that the person
who claims a particular identity — and a corresponding date of birth — might be an impostor (Thorns,
Table 1. Documents Confirming CM's Age and/or Date of Birth
Document
Year
Birth registration
Danish census
Confirmation of baptism
Danish census
U.S. immigration record
Application to join the Danish Brotherhood in America
U.S.census
Retirement pension application
Transfer of Freemasonary membership to Texas
Application for admission to retirement community
1882
1890
1896
1901
1903
1905
1920
1950
1970
1978
Note: All documents on this list give the same date of birth
(August 16,1882) or an age that is consistent with this date.
784
1873). Could it be, for example, that some younger
person might have assumed the identity of the original CM at some point in the near or distant past? The
motivations for such a switch of identity could be
numerous: to marry before the legally sanctioned
age, to avoid military service, to facilitate migration,
to gain early retirement benefits, to claim an inheritance under false pretense, or to enjoy the celebrity
status that often accompanies exceptional longevity
(Wilmoth & Lundstrom, 1996).
In this situation, the scenario that seems most
worthy of attention is that a younger person might
have assumed CM's identity in order to immigrate to
the United States. For example, one might speculate
that the original CM went home to Denmark during
the 1920s or 1930s, but that a younger brother,
cousin, nephew, or some other person returned to
the U.S. using his passport. Such a hypothesis is
plausible, especially in light of the fact that more
restrictive U.S. immigration laws were instituted during the 1920s. Under this scenario, the original CM
might have died in Denmark or later returned to the
U.S. and died there. In either case, it would now be
difficult to find any record of his death (perhaps
having occurred several decades ago).
In spite of these concerns, our belief that there has
been no change of identity is well supported by a
variety of evidence. Based on conversations with
him, it is virtually certain that CM spent the early
years of his life in Denmark (see Appendix, Note 1).
Furthermore, a similar physical description has been
documented over time. CM is a rather short man,
even considering that he was born more than 100
years ago, when average heights were much lower
than today. His height was listed as 5'4" (162.6 cm) on
a 1905 physical examination taken at the time he
joined the Danish Brotherhood in America. Recent
measurements (performed by a nurse without
knowledge of the earlier data) show a current height
of 5'3V2". When asked, CM said that his height was
"5'5" with shoes" (see Appendix, Note 2). CM also
told us that the Danish army rejected him on the
basis of his short stature (see Appendix, Note 3).
On their own, however, Danish nativity and consistency of adult height are an inadequate basis for
dismissing the possibility that there may have been
some switch of identity. Thus, we also asked CM a
series of questions regarding his life and family history, and then compared his answers with documentary evidence. The results of this investigation are
summarized in Table 2. Admittedly, if the hypothesized impostor were a family member, he could be
expected to know the answers to many of these
questions. If the impostor were a younger brother,
for example, he might know as much about the
details of the immediate family as the original CM.
Parish records indicate, however, that CM was the
youngest of 6 children (see Appendix, Note 4). A
younger cousin or nephew might have known some
of this information, but it is unlikely that they or even
a younger brother could have so accurately recounted the details of CM's life history, as seen in
Table 2.
The Gerontologist
Table 2. Information Confirming CM's Identity
Subject
Information given by CM
Verified
Comments
Full (given) name:
Thomas Peter Thorvald Kristian Ferdinand
Mortensen
Yes
Place of birth:
Skaarup (near Skanderborg)
Yes
Date of birth:
Father's full name:
Mother's full name:
Sibling's names:
August 16,1882
Yes
Jens Carl Martinus Mortensen
Maren Therkildsen Thyboe
Yes
Yes
CM did not know his parents' dates of birth,
death, or marriage.
Johannes Mortensen
Carl Emil Mortensen
Julius Mortensen
Yes
CM did not know his sibling's dates of birth,
but he knew the relative ages of the 4 surviving
brothers (4 years apart, approximately). CM
never mentioned two siblings who died before
his birth.
Sibling's deaths:
Johannes:
Carl Emil:
Julius:
Mostly
Records indicate that Julius died at age 72, not
79. All other information agrees well with the
official records. Johannes' death certificate lists
"consumption" as the cause of death, which
probably indicates TB.
Family home:
CM said that the family home in Skaarup was
bought by his brother, Carl Emil, after the death
of his father. The father had borrowed money
against the home, so after his death the debt
had to be re-paid or the family would lose the
house. CM said that his mother stayed in that
house until her death.
Yes
CM's father died in May 1905, and civil records
show that ownership of the house passed to
Carl Emil in 1906. The debt was to a nephew,
which may help to explain the slight delay.
CM's mother died in June 1924, and the house
was sold to the next owner in the same year.
Immigration to U.S.
Age: 20 or 21.
Year: 1902 or 1903.
Sailed from Copenhagen on a ship called "The
United States," arrived in NYC on Saturday of a
holiday weekend (perhaps the 4th of July),
stayed on Ellis Island 3 days, bound for Chicago
to live with "some distant relatives" or "an
uncle" named Niels Hansen.a
Mostly
CM's only error was that the holiday weekend
was Labor Day, not July 4. CM's age was listed
as 21 when his immigration was recorded at Ellis
Island on Tuesday, September 8,1903, the day
after Labor Day. His entry record confirms the
name of the ship, his destination, and the name
of his "uncle."
Relatives in Chicago:
CM said that the family of Niels Hansen had
moved to Chicago just before his arrival in the
U.S. because of a major flood that drove them
from Kansas City.
CM said that he began work as a tailor's
apprentice in November of the year he turned
16. The apprenticeship lasted for 5 years.
Yes
History books mention an unusually large flood
that inundated vast regions of Kansas City
during May and June of 1903.
Yes
The 1901 Danish census lists CM's occupation
as "tailor's apprentice" and indicates that he
had moved from Skaarup (the village of his
birth) to Skanderborg (a regional city) in 1898,
thus at age 15 or 16. From U.S. immigration
records, we know he left for the U.S. five years
later, in 1903.
CM said that he was employed by Continental
Can Company for 21 years.
Yes
Company records show that CM worked at
Continental Can from 1929 to 1950.
Apprenticeship:
Employment:
age 31, from TB
age 92, in Aarhus
age 79, in Horsens
The village of Skaarup is in the parish of
Fruering.
•CM showed some confusion about the name of Niels Hansen. He first called him "Hans Hansen" but later corrected himself.
Apparently, he had two relatives in Chicago with similar names, which were easily confused (especially after 90 years). It appears that Niels
Hansen was not a real uncle, but some distant relative whom we have not yet been able to identify based on Danish records. This general
usage of the term "uncle" is not uncommon in either Danish or English.
point during adult life, it is not at all plausible that the
impostor could have possessed the detailed and accurate knowledge of CM's life and family that has
emerged in our interviews with him. In these extensive interviews, we have found no errors or inconsistencies in his story, compared to the available documentary evidence, other than those reported in
Table 2 (for example, the mistaken age at death for
his brother Julius, or the confusion about the name
of his "uncle," Niels Hansen), and it seems that these
small errors can reasonably be attributed to lapses of
Considering the consistency of the documentary
evidence regarding CM's age and date of birth, and
the high degree of agreement between the recorded
evidence and CM's account of his life and family
history, there appears to be no room to doubt the
authenticity of this case. The consistency of the record until the time he left Denmark at age 21, as well
as the absence of any evidence of younger siblings, is
convincing proof that there could not have been a
switch of identity during his early life. If someone
other than CM had assumed his identity at some
Vol. 36, No. 6,1996
785
memory. Therefore, we are convinced that CM is
truly 114 years old.
Significance of the Case
The case of CM is significant because it appears to
define (and redefine) the limits of male human longevity. Of course, more extreme cases of exceptional
longevity have been documented for women. Most
notably, at the age of 121 years, JC of Aries, France,
appears almost certainly to be the oldest human alive
today and quite possibly the oldest human to have
ever lived (Robine & Allard, 1995). What evidence
supports our assertion that CM may be the male
version of JC?
First, let us consider the question of whether CM,
at 114 years old, may be the oldest living man in the
world. It will not be possible to substantiate this claim
beyond a shadow of a doubt. In most countries,
inadequate recordkeeping makes it impossible to verify the ages of persons who make claims of exceptional longevity. Therefore, we cannot determine the
age of the oldest persons living in a vast portion of the
world today. Of necessity, our investigation will be
limited to those parts of the world where accurate
recordkeeping permits a reliable determination of the
age of the oldest living individuals.
By consulting with colleagues from various countries, we have been able to determine the ages of the
oldest men in several countries. The most reliable
records come from countries with complete population registers, such as the Scandinavian countries
(Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Finland) and Japan.
According to reports available in late 1995, however,
there were no living men older than 109 years in any
of these countries (see Appendix, Note 5). In France,
where an extensive study of centenarians has been
carried out in recent years, there are only two documented cases of male supercentenarians (i.e., individuals at least 110 years old) in recent years. One of
these men died at age 111 during December 1995;
the other was still alive at last report and was to
celebrate his 111th birthday in July 1996 (Jean-Marie
Robine, personal communication, March 25, 1996).
Thus, to our knowledge, CM is about 3 years older
than the next oldest living man on the planet.
Of course, it is always possible that there may be
men in other parts of the world who are older than
114 years, but for lack of reliable administrative records we could never verify their age. It is worth
noting that even in a country like the United States,
complete and reliable birth registration is of relatively recent origin (U.S. vital registration became
complete only in 1933, when Texas became the last
state to join the system). Therefore, the opportunity
to identify a person of extreme old age and to check
rigorously the accuracy of the report is limited to a
fairly small collection of countries. In the case of CM,
we have enjoyed the good fortune that he was born
in Denmark, where the tradition of detailed recordkeeping has helped us to verify his date of birth. To
our knowledge, this is the first case of an immigrant
supercentenarian where adequate documentation
has been found in his country of birth.
786
It may be instructive to consider also the situation
of China, with the world's largest national population. It is generally believed that age reporting is
fairly reliable in China — especially among the Han
majority, who comprise about 94% of the total —
thanks in part to the use of the Chinese calendar and
also to the social importance of a person's age
(Coale, 1984). Recent tabulations of the 1990 Chinese
census show that there are around 6400 centenarians
in China, or about 5 per million population, which
does not seem implausible (see Appendix, Note 6).
Excluding all minority populations, where age reporting is thought to be less reliable, there were
seven men with a recorded age of 113 or more in 1990
(Zeng Yi, personal communication, August 7, 1995).
It is possible, of course, that some of these reports
are genuine, but adequate verification is impossible
given the absence of birth records or other corroborating evidence.
On the basis of this limited investigation, is it
reasonable to conclude that CM is without a doubt
the oldest man in the world? Our answer is "no." It
appears accurate, however, to state that he is the
oldest living man whose age has been reliably verified. It also seems plausible that he may be the oldest
man in the world for the following reasons. First, it is
reasonable to expect that the oldest individuals
would be found in the countries with the highest
probabilities of survival especially at advanced ages.
In most cases, the countries with the most reliable
data (e.g., Japan, the Scandinavian countries, France)
are also the countries with the world's lowest old-age
mortality (see Appendix, Note 7). Therefore, our
failure to find a living man in any of these countries
who is as old as, or older than, CM suggests strongly
that there may not be any such men in the entire
world. Furthermore, the distance between CM and
his closest known competitor, almost three years,
also supports the belief that CM may indeed be the
oldest man alive today.
Next, let us consider the question of whether CM
may be the oldest man who has ever lived. Here,
obviously, the task is even more daunting than before, since all countries lack reliable records if we
probe far enough into the distant past. Furthermore,
false reports of super-longevity have been commonplace and, with the passing of time, become more
and more difficult to disprove. Experienced students
of this subject agree that, at least historically, the
majority of claims of exceptional longevity have
probably been false. For example, the number of
centenarians reported in many countries, including
the United States as recently as 1980, may be inflated
by a factor of two or more (Kannisto, 1988; U.S.
Bureau of the Census, 1987). In such cases, the ratio
of fanciful to actual cases among supercentenarians
(those over 110 years) is usually even higher (and in
most cases is probably infinity).
A number of detailed studies have investigated the
accuracy (or rather, the inaccuracy) of various reported cases of exceptional longevity. In the last
century, Thorns (1873) devoted an entire book to
debunking a number of widely celebrated claims of
The Gerontologist
super-longevity in England. More recently, purported cases of individuals living to age 120,130, and
beyond have been widely discussed and subsequently dismissed by the scientific community (Bennett & Carson, 1986; Mazess & Forman, 1979;
Medvedev, 1974; Palmore, 1984; Thorson, 1995). The
most heavily advertised of these cases were those
from the state of Georgia (in the former USSR) and
the village of Vilcabamba in Ecuador. In the case of
Vilcabamba, the investigator from Harvard who had
originally certified the "authenticity" of the reports
later felt obliged to admit his error publicly (Leaf,
1981).
The accuracy of reported age at death in several
national statistical systems appears to have improved
over time, although no country had fully reliable
aggregate records before 1860 (Wilmoth & Lundstrom, 1996). In all countries today, it is necessary to
conduct a thorough investigation of all reported supercentenarians before certifying their accuracy.
Minimally, the person's stated age must be checked
against birth records and other documents to demonstrate a consistency in the reported (or implied)
date of birth. For a rigorous investigation, however,
it is also necessary to consider (and to dismiss) the
possibility that the observed individual could be an
impostor who, for some reason, has assumed the
identity of an older person who is now dead. Applying these standards, we are certain that CM is indeed
114 years old, but we have not found any other well
documented cases of a man living to this age.
Historically, the next oldest man (after CM) whose
age appears to have been adequately verified was an
Englishman named John Evans (JE), who died at the
age of 112 years and 295 days in 1990 (Thatcher, 1992).
The Office of Population Censuses and Surveys
checked JE's age against his birth record. Although
their investigation was by no means exhaustive, the
plausibility of the case is also supported by the publicity that it received while JE was still living and by
the apparent absence of challenges to its accuracy.
At the age of 110, JE gave testimony in a court case
involving a disputed right-of-way. The court relied
upon JE's recollection of the historical basis of the
right-of-way, since he was recognized as the only
person with a knowledge of the situation who was
old enough to remember that far into the past (A.
Roger Thatcher, personal communication, August 3,
1995). If JE's age was misrepresented, the inaccuracy
would likely have been exposed during the court
case.
We know of only two cases of men who reportedly
lived more than 113 years where the authenticity of
the case has been, and perhaps continues to be,
accepted by some students of the subject. In both
cases, however, we believe that the weight of the
evidence suggests that the reports are more likely
inaccurate than accurate. The best known is the case
of a Japanese man, Shigechiyo Izumi (SI), whose age
at death is still listed as the oldest ever in The Guinness Book of Records and has been cited frequently
in the news media. It is claimed that Si's age was 120
years and 237 days at the time of his death in 1986.
Vol.36, No. 6,1996
This case has now been rejected by almost all experts
who are familiar with it, including the Japanese man
who originally brought it to the attention of Guinness
(Kannisto & Thatcher, 1993; Matsuzaki, 1988;
Wilmoth & Lundstrom, 1996), and the common belief
is that SI was in fact "only" 105 years old at the time of
his death.
The case of Pierre Joubert (PJ) of Quebec, who was
reportedly age 113 years and 124 days when he died
in 1814, has been less widely discussed. According to
Bowerman (1939), the authenticity of this case was
"vouched for by the statistician of the Canadian
Census in 1878 after'a thorough investigation.'" Bowerman also cites Young (1905), who noted that "this
laborious investigation appears to me to have been
minutely and effectively completed." Both Bowerman and Young are respected authorities on the
authenticity of early centenarians, although they appear to have been fooled in this situation. A more
recent investigation based on genealogical records
has revealed that the reputed super-longevity of
Pierre Joubert was indeed a case of mistaken identity, whereby the deaths of father and son (both
having the same name) were confused (Charbonneau, 1990).
Conclusion
We have concluded that CM is the first properly
verified case of a 114-year-old man in human history.
It is possible, of course, that there are other men
who attained this age but escaped detection, perhaps because verification was impossible due to an
absence of reliable administrative records. There is
the risk that, as we improve our efforts to verify cases
of exceptional longevity, we will create the appearance of an increase in their frequency or the illusion
of an upward trend. These pitfalls cannot be avoided
if we focus our attention only on case studies of
extremely long-lived individuals. Therefore, the
proper analysis of secular trends in extreme longevity must be carried out on fixed populations
(Wilmoth & Lundstrom, 1996), with case studies
merely supplementing the trend analysis. Still lacking in our overall investigation of this topic, however, is an adequate theoretical investigation of the
relationship between the trend in extreme longevity
for some subpopulation with a long series of reliable
data (for example, the national populations of Sweden or Denmark) and the analogous trend for the
entire world population. Case studies of the oldest
humans who have ever lived are the empirical complement to such a theoretical analysis.
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Accepted June 19, 1996
Appendix
Notes
1. Two authors of this article are Danes and have spoken
with CM in Danish.
788
2. The estimated mean adult height for Danish men of
CM's generation is around 169 cm, with a standard
deviation of about 6.5 cm (Jesper Boldsen, personal
communication, 8/10/95). Thus, CM's adult height is
approximately one standard deviation below the mean
for men in his cohort, or around the 16th percentile. If
we consider that a reasonable measurement error
would be around 2 cm in either direction, then we
would have argued by this criterion that any Danish
man with a height between 160.6 and 164.6 cm would
have possessed the necessary physical description.
However, the probability that the height a randomly
chosen (male) Dane from CM's generation would fall in
this range is only around 12 percent. For men of a
younger generation, who tend to be taller, a height in
this range would be even less likely.
3. The minimum height required for conscription in the
Danish army during this time was 160.8 cm (Jesper
Boldsen, personal communication, 8/10/95). Assuming
CM was fully grown at the time of the 1905 physical
exam, CM's ultimate adult height was about 2 cm above
this limit. It is clearly possible, however, that he was still
below this limit some 4-5 years earlier, around the age
of 18 or 19.
4. We know that CM's parents lived continuously in the
parish of Fruering beginning in 1869. CM's oldest
brother was born before his parents moved to Fruering.
Afterwards, the birth registry in Fruering shows 5 children born to CM's parents, of which CM was the last.
The Danish censuses of 1890 and 1901 also confirm that
there were only 6 children in the family, and by 1901
CM's mother was 59 years old and thus surely past the
age of reproduction.
5. This conclusion is based on our own investigation,
supplemented by personal communications from Hans
Lundstrom (8/4/95) and Shiro Horiuchi (12/2/95).
6. According to this estimate, the prevalence of centenarians in China is still below the level observed in a group
of industrialized countries in 1960 (Kannisto, 1988), and
well below the prevalence of around 50 centenarians
per million observed in most industrialized countries
today (Kannisto, 1994; Wilmoth, 1995).
7. Some authors contend that the United States has the
lowest old-age mortality in the world (Manton &
Vaupel, 1995), although there is no doubt that the quality of U.S. mortality data, at least at extreme ages, is
inferior to the other countries cited here (Wilmoth &
Lundstrom, 1996).
The Gerontologist