Carrie C. White

Carrie C. White - 116 years, 88 days, United States
Carrie C. White was verified as a 116 year old by the Guinness World Records in 1989 before the modern era of longevity validations which led to her case being debunked. She is mentioned here because her case teaches a valuable lesson about replication of errors [36].

White had been institutionalised in mental health care for most of her life. Her age was validated because records beginning from the time of her internment consistently gave her year of birth as 1874. This included hospital records and the census returns for 1920 and 1930. Once more historical records had been indexed, it became easier to find her parent’s names and look back at earlier records from before she was taken into care. The census records for 1880 (where she was absent) and 1900 proved that she had in fact been born in about 1888 making her longevity claim false.

It is now clear that her incorrect age must have been copied repeatedly from a poor estimate recorded around the time she became institutionalised for life. From this we learn that multiple records that give the same answer do not substantially increase the certainty of the information shown. In the case of White, the apparent certainty was debunked by going back to an earlier time, but even this would not be sufficient if the mistake is to not recognise an identity switch, rather than a made-up date. This is relevant to cases such as the longevity claim of Jeanne Calment where we are often told that the multiplicity of records confirms their correctness. As Carrie C White’s example teaches us, this is not the case.