One of my ancestors, David Kinnison, participated in the Boston Tea Party and was supposedly the oldest surviving member of the BTP. I have family information that claims he was born November 17, 1736 and died February 24, 1852. I thought maybe that great-grandma or whoever wrote down this information might have hit the cooking sherry a little too hard so I went to the web and googled his name and the same information shows up there.
I’m sort of a semi-professional skeptic (I’m the one who loves to go to snopes.com to deflate wildly erroneous emails) and I’m having a hard time believing that this guy lived to be 115. He also doesn’t show up in the Wikipedia lists of oldest people.
More likely he had a son or another family member of the same or similar name and somebody’s mistranscribed it. My partner has been researching her family and has found many such errors (along with incorrect names, confusion of generations, and unfounded assertions of being related to famous people). Going back to immigration, birth, and death certificates has been helpful in correcting the tree. She also comments that people pick up each other’s information on the web and uncritically incorporate it where it appears to match their own families. She’s traced several errors in distal family records that have been replicated from a common source, then perpetuated in a way that makes people believe that others’ accounts are confirmatory.
That said, even in the mid 1800’s, 115 isn’t completely impossible - it’s not like the stories you sometimes hear out of Asia of folks claiming to be over 200. At 115, he’d be several standard deviations out, but then, someone has to be.
Didn’t a few Revolutionary War veterans make it to 110 or so? I also recall that the last Civil War veteran died in 1957! That is almost beyond comprehension!
We’re also still paying a handful of pensions to the widows of Civil War veterans. Keep in mind these aren’t woman who lost their husbands in the war. These are women who while in their teens or early 20s married men in their 90s.
There are no credible reports of anyone living to the age of 200 or beyond. It is true that some Asian cultures–particularly the inhabitants of Okinawa–historically demonstrate extremely lengthy and productive lifespans, often being productive and mobile in their 80s and 90s, but even for these cultures living significantly past 100 years is unusual, though not unheard of. While partially genetic this is probably a result of the native diet (mostly vegetables and moderate amounts of lean protein), lack of vices (alcohol, tobacco), and a physically and socially active lifestyle, as modern Asians living a Western lifestyle show mortality and morbidity rates in line with Western societies.
It is not impossible that the o.p.'s ancestor lived to 115 years, but it would be very, very unusual, and highly suspect that it isn’t well documented and celebrated. It seems far more likely to be a mix-up of two relatives. In the massive spectrum of human population you could predict that there is substantial likelihood of someone having lived any quantity of years based upon a non-zero probability at many standard deviations; however, this is an artifact of the method, not the reality that there are biological limits to aging. Technically, a normal distribution is probably not the most accurate distribution for an age spectrum, anyway.
Most of the info on this guy was only obtained in an around the date of his death. Everyone at the time took what he said as gospel. If you read the narratives in the newspapers from 1852, there’s quite a bit of room for skepticism.
If you could actually find definitive proof that he lived to 115 (which isn’t very likely), he would become the first person to live to 115 by a long, long shot. No one before 1981 ever reached that age who had good records of their birth date.
If you go to the page “The Dispute”, it’ll talk more about it. It mentions an article by Albert Overton from the 70s, who debunks the legend, concluding that Kennison made most of his story up, combining the stories of other Kennisons/Kinnisons, and that he was probably around 7 at the time of the Tea Party and about 85 when he died.
So, in all likelihood, he was just scamming people. (He also might not have been your ancestor, in spite of claims he had over 20 children, Overton could only find actual documentary proof of four, and undisputed proof of only one, a daughter)
I think the last one died in 2004, but I may be mistaken.
Depending on where he was from, you should be able to locate the original Census records for not only him, but his entire family. The Census only counted heads of household up to 1840 (it did list the number of inhabitants by age and sex, but didn’t give names). In 1850 and beyond, it actually listed out the inhabitants of the dwelling.
You could also check the pension rolls for the Revolutionary War (assuming he fought). They aren’t complete, but they may have some record. In order to receive the pension you had to be able to document your service, so there may be more info available through that route as well.
I don’t know, I’ve heard all my life that my fathers grandfather lived to be 116. Now keep in mind, my father is now 83, and very active. He goes out by himself, walks around, catches the bus and goes where ever he wants. Totally clear of mind, exercises daily, etc.
He was born in 1925, his father was born in 1902, and from what we can tell, his father’s father was born in 1854 and didn’t die until 1970. He raised my father after his son (my grandfather) died of TB.
I’ve always found it a little hard to believe too, but so far, eveyones sticking to the story. But… This was in Utuado, PR, so until someone can translate all the cenus documents I guess I can’t say for sure its true.
Once again, if your great-grandfather lived to be 116 in 1970, myrnajean, it wouldn’t just be surprising. It would be a world record if you could prove it. There is no definitive record of anyone living to be 116 before 1982.
My great-grandfather is currently 100 or 101 yrs old, and amazingly his father fought in the Civil War (I guess his dad was very old when he had him). He has a letter from Abe Lincoln.
So your great-grandfather was born in 1907, petew83. Suppose his father enlisted in the army at 18 in 1864. That would make him 61 when your great-grandfather was born. Older than average, maybe, but that wouldn’t remotely be a record. One of my grandfathers was born when his father was 61 and his mother (his father’s second wife) was 45.
Coincidentally, 61 is the age my grandfather was when my father was born and my father was 37 when I was born. My grandfather would have been 99 when I was born because of the ways the birthdays worked out. He was born in 1844. I will be glad to get out of these Victorian corsets and into the flapper dresses.