Top Ten Longest Lived

Running reports and documenting sources.

I found time to scrutinize the Database Statistics today and inspected the info it was drawing on for the Top Ten “Longest Lived” individuals. I knew there were inconsistencies and looked at those briefly several times in the past few months, but it was a low priority task. Today I found time to review and verify the top five candidates.

The original list looked like this:

1. Petrus (Piet) Paulus Antonius Mulder 115 years 351 days
2. Lena 112 years
3. Cornelis Sweere 111 years
4. Adrianus Corneliszn Sweere 107 years
5. Truus Dijkhoff 106 years 313 days
6. Pauline Ernestine Catherina Van Steenvoort 105 years 346 days
7. Mathijs-Hubert Rutten 104 years 256 days
8. Cornelius Hendricus Sweere 103 years 98 days
9. Suzanne Antisdel 99 years 265 days
10. Mary Louise Buysse 99 years 259 days

One glance at Petrus Mulder’s birth date raised red flags. I had no source documented for his individual entry. His parents were shown as Antonius Maria Mulder married to Theodora Maria Anna Dijkhoff. Antonius’ birth date is documented in Brabant Archives as 17 Sep 1857. It’s unlikely that he would have a son born in 1870.

Source documents also show Antonius and Theodora married in 1899 with 5 children born between 1 Apr 1900 through 26 Jan 1905. After some hunting around in the Brabant and Gelders Archives, I determined that the data for Petrus Mulder was non-verifiable.

A search of name variations in the archives for a Petrus born in 1870 yielded zero. Nothing connected him to those parents, so he (and his wife, Stephina Cornelia Kooimans) have been removed from our family tree. I suspect they were a result of the database merge I did about a year ago, since I had isolated fragments of Dykhoff information from another GEDCOM in my original file.

Next,  I looked at “Lena”, wife of Charles Horsch. She was an easy fix, since source documents were cited for death, burial date, and burial location. Her date of death was incorrect by nearly 20 years at 1981 while the source stated 1963.

Cornelis Sweere was recorded at 111 years due to an estimated death date based on an event in one of his son’s lives.  I found a death record in the archives that fits his age and place of residence, with no other individual contesting that identity, so for the time being I believe this is his correct death date.

Adrianus Corneliszn Sweere‘s age was listed at 107 years also due to an estimated death date based on an event in one of his son’s lives. With no corresponding death date source verification, I simply removed the “aft 1827?”  from his death date field and he was removed from the calculation.

Truus Dijkhoff was investigated and the same issues applied to her data as to Petrus (#1 above) only the undocumented birth date recorded was earlier than her father’s recorded date. I found no birth records, so left cleared the birth date field and left her in the database for further research on her marriage to determine whether or not she is a daughter of Jan Coen Dijkhoff and Geertruida Liefkins.

For Paulina van Steenvoort the birth date of 5 Jul 1896, Kampenhout, Belgium, is unverified. The hunt for this source jumps up on the priority list, since her family will be gathering this summer for a family reunion. Until proven otherwise, Paulina reigns the list of Longest Living individuals.

You’re the Queen, Paulina!

Locating sources in Belgium will take effort, since I haven’t had luck in the past, finding comprehensive record indexes with an English option.

For that same reason, I skipped Mathijs Rutten after a quick search of Genlias turned up zilch. The Rutten family spreads along both sides of the Noord-Barabant / Belgium border.

Of the three remaining candidates I’m certain of the dates for Cornelius Dykhoff and Mary Buysse since they died within a month of each other less than a year ago. Suzanne Antisdel has a documented death date, but I need to confirm her birthdate. The present date seems reasonable but I’m out of time for this day. And after those corrections five new individuals have moved into the Top Ten Longest Lived list.

ex animo ~J

Update: 02 May 2006- The United States Social Security Death index confirms the birth date for Pauline is, in fact, 5 Jul 1896, which makes her the Longest Lived Individual in the database.