Violet Brown

Violet Brown - 117 years, 189 days, Jamaica
At this time, no scientific report has provided details of the evidence used to validate the case of Violet Brown. Robert Young delivered a record breaker’s certificate on behalf of GWR, but he has not said on what basis the validation was made. Official records, news reports and family testimony help fill some of the gaps, but there is still too much we do not know.

Civil registration records her birth on 10 Mar 1900 in Duanvale, Trelawny, Jamaica. A copy of her birth document can be found on familysearch.org. She had at least 7 siblings including a sister 3 years younger who could be a potential swap partner. It is also possible that birth records for some of younger siblings are missing.

Four children are also recorded; each one with just the mother’s name Violet Moss, but the fathers were known and their family names were used later. The oldest was Harland Fairweather born 1920 who immigrated to England. He returned to his homeland in his later years and was himself notable in the record books as the oldest person with a living mother at age 97. His brother Irving Adolph Russell born 1923 immigrated to the United States where he died in 1989. Both of these brothers have living descendants in their adopted country. Irving had a twin sister Elsie Estelle Russell who outlived her mother. A third younger brother Beresford 1926-1927 died as an infant.

There are four other younger children of Violet Brown whose birth records we are unable to confirm online; Barrington Russell b. 1932, Sylvera B Russell b. 1935, Hydeline G Brown b. 1938, and Strickland Maurice Davis (birth year unknown). Five of her children were still alive at the time of her validation. For privacy reasons we will not give personal details beyond what is already known publicly.

As her children’s names suggest, Violet Mosse Brown had several partners during her life. She reportedly married Augustus Brown who was the father of her youngest daughter, but we are unable to confirm this with a marriage record and the date of marriage is unknown. Augustus was a farmer who also took care of the village graveyard and kept its records. Some biographical reports give his year of death as 1997 but a death certificate from 1978 showing his daughter, H G Brown, as the informant, contradicts this.

Violet lived her life in a small village where anything unusual would be noticed. There are strong family resemblances between Violet and her sons where pictures are available. Most potential switch scenarios would have to defy the accepted history at several points. Testimony could go a long way towards completing a basic validation but until a report is available we cannot mark the validation as safe. It is possible that unreconciled differences between family members make further progress unlikely.

The high number of high longevity claims from Jamaica is a concern. In European countries where records are reliable we have seen about six supercentenarians up to 2020, per million of 1900 population. In Japan and the US the numbers could be around twice as high. In Jamaica the GRG is listing 26 claims born in Jamaica from 110 to 117 years of age. This is for a 1900 population of around 750,000, so it is highly excessive compared to countries where statistics are more reliable. For most of these cases birth records have not been found yet and they are likely to be false. Violet Brown is the only one of these verified by GWR and she cannot be dismissed on statistical evidence, but the abundance of Jamaican claims does suggest either a prevailing culture of age exaggeration or confusion over people’s birth dates. In this context Violet Brown’s case does therefore merit an in-depth validation which has not yet been provided.

A full cast-iron validation would have required extensive DNA testing for multiple relatives. Violet Brown’s body was donated to the University of West Indies for medical research.