Jeralean Talley

Jeralean Talley - 116 years, 25 days, United States
Jeralean Talley was born into the Curtz family in Georgia in 1899. The 1900 census records her birth month as May 1899 which is consistent with her age claim. She appears with changing members of her family on all the census returns until 1940. Although the family is recognisable, the recorded ages and spellings of their names varied wildly from one census to another. This might be a consequence of poor education. Even the count of children born and living is recorded inconsistently between 1900 and 1910. Other records include her marriage in 1936.

It has been reported that she was one of 12 siblings and had one child of her own. Her family includes a younger sister Louverta born 1905 who lived until 2003. Only 9 of these children are accounted for on the census so the possibility that there was another girl born after 1900 cannot be ruled out on the evidence. This means that an early sibling identity switch due to confusion and poor record keeping is a potential possibility. If such switches are discounted then the timing of the birth just before the 1900 census would at least confirm the claimed age to within a few months.

A formal validation was included in the 2020 report by Young and Kroczek [39], but they were unable to provide any evidence that further increased our confidence in her longevity.

In view of these observations and the age inconsistencies we do not consider the validation of this claim to be sufficiently safe for scientific purposes, but it does meet the weaker standards required by GWR.