Marie-Louise Meilleur

### Marie-Louise Meilleur - 117 years, 230 days, Canada

At fifth place on the women’s list, Marie-Louise Meilleur is another verified supercentenarian alongside Sarah Knauss for whom we believe that a strong validation may be achievable with the available evidence. A validation report is available (Desjardins) [71] and additional biographical notes were published [48]. Her baptism record from 1880 in Kamouraska, Quebec can be readily checked online. It took place just two days after her birth. She had two sisters whose lives are accounted for. She does however appear to have one opportunity in her family history where an identity switch could have been possible. Between 1910 and 1912 her first husband Étienne Leclerc died followed by both her parents. The death record of Étienne says he died in February 1911 but he was later recorded with his family in the census of that year.  In 1913 she left her home town of Quebec to live with her sister Albertine in the country. We can confirm that her three young children moved with her, or to join her, as they were recorded on the 1921 Canadian census together.

Testimonies of these children reduce the probability of an identity switch but they were very young when it could have happened. She is said to have returned home only once for a visit many years later. She remarried to Hector Meilleur in 1915. Her age was recorded as 32 in the marriage certificate and her father was listed as a farmer (not deceased as it should have been). Hector had children from a previous marriage, and they had further children together. According to later newspaper reports, all the children called her “Nanny” which suggests she could have worked as a childminder for the family before her second marriage.

Where there are dramatic events of this nature in someone’s life, there is an opportunity for an identity switch. Bereavement and estrangement from many of her relatives and friends means that this could go undetected. We do not consider such a switch to be likely in this case, but in a Bayesian analysis of longevity claims, conditional probability can be higher even for unlikely switch scenarios because of mortality evidence (see ref [38]). Such events should be carefully scrutinised. To improve certainty we would like to see a documented history of those times with sourced evidence. Her eldest daughter also named Marie-Louise (1901-1940) needs to be accounted for. She was married to Joseph Bossé and her last child André Bossé was probably born 25 Dec 1939 so more detailed evidence is likely to rule out this switch. A swap with her sister Albertine seems to be unlikely because Albertine was married to Jules Chuinard (1872-1952). They had four children recorded in the 1911 census in Kamouraska and seven children in 1921 census in Des Joachims village. Assuming that a sibling swap can be ruled out, it might be possible to eliminate other switch scenarios such as with another relative or nanny by comparing DNA from descendants of her first marriage with that of those from her second.

Meilleur at age 95 in 1975Meilleur with familyMeilleur at age 117Meilleur circa 1940 at age 60Meilleur with her husband Hector MeilleurMeilleur (center) at age 100 with her sister-in-laws Rebecca, Vean, Mary, and GeorginaMeilleur at age 98Meilleur (right) in a hand-drawn portrait from 1915Grandson Jean Bossé and wife reading documents used to validate Meilleur's age