European Supercentenarian Organisation

The **European Supercentenarian Organisation (ESO)** is a group of researchers in various fields that verifies and tracks supercentenarians of European origin; people born in Europe who are at least 110 years old.

## History

The European Supercentenarian Organisation was co-founded by Andrew Holmes, the founder of the Oldest in Britain website. The other co-founders were Marco Wikkerink and Chris Law. The ESO started validating supercentenarians on 1 January 2020. As of 1 January 2021, they had 430 validated supercentenarians.

The ESO's forum was founded on 6 January 2020.

## Validation process

The mission of the ESO is to validate European supercentenarians (including emigrants), people who have reached the age of 110 years or above, both living and deceased, to provide a repository of biographical information on supercentenarians through interviews, newspaper articles, and other forms of media, working with scientists who need a reliable source for their research on the genetics of the oldest people, etc.

People claiming to be supercentenarians, or their family members, are required to supply documents that prove the claimant's birth date (at least one of the submitted documents must be from the first twenty years of the claimant's life), change of name (if applicable), and date of death (if applicable), along with another piece of official government identification (recent ID card, passport, or driving licence).

### Validation level

The ESO has six different categories:

1. **High level validated** – This means that the person's age has been proven to be true and is covered by documentation from all stages of their lives.
2. **Mid level validated** – This means that there is strong evidence for the person's age, which is covered by documentation from all stages of their lives. However, the early life documentation does not explicitly state a full date of birth. Instead, this may be covered by another source, such as a baptism record, or their age on a census return.
3. **Low level validated** – This means that the person's birth date is believed to be true on the balance of evidence, but documentation from stages of their life might be lacking, inconsistent or of less thorough quality.
4. **Unvalidated** – This means that either late-life documentation has been submitted, or the organisation has been notified of a supercentenarian's claim (but has not received any documentation yet).
5. **High level debunked** – This means that the supercentenarian's claim has been disproven and the person in question was not at least 110 years old.
6. **Low level debunked** – This means that the person in question is likely not a supercentenarian, but it is difficult to determine how old this person exactly was.

## Members

1. **Andrew Holmes**, co-founder of the ESO, founder of the Oldest in Britain website, founder of the ESO forum.
2. **Marco Wikkerink**, co-founder, Netherlands
3. **Chris Law**, co-founder, United Kingdom
4. **Anthony Croes-Lacroix**, correspondent for Belgium.

## Gallery

European Supercentenarian Organisation Forum, June 2021 (not logged in).
## References

* European Supercentenarian Organisation website
* European Supercentenarian Organisation forum

1. ↑ La Belge Marcelle Lévaz devient la doyenne du Benelux Le Soir, 15 May 2021