Talk:Virginia McLaurin

Year of birth

Why is there two years of birth here? Why is this not discussed in the article. Either the woman is super old or not so old Legacypac (talk) 20:07, 12 March 2019 (UTC)

Well, public records indicate a 1917 birth despite insisting she was born in 1909.76.187.211.251 (talk) 03:43, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

In one interview, she says she got married at 13. Possibly she had to declare being older for the marriage to be valid. 1909–1917 = 8 years difference, so she could have claimed to be 21. Such cases were relatively common in those days. But that's just speculation; we must wait for RS to clarify this. — JFG ^talk 19:03, 10 August 2019 (UTC)

The "public records" source that is cited in this article is a conglomeration of data and is notoriously unreliable. It should not be considered a primary source, and if it is the only source of doubt in McLaurin's birthdate, I would recommend discounting the doubt altogether. —Gordon P. Hemsley→✉ 05:06, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

The source of doubt is that a large number of cases of extreme age have turned out to be false, based on either outright intentional fraud for one motive or another or just the consequences of someone guessing at their unknown birthdate, and being off by enough that it turned out to be an implausible number later in life. This is a person who has no documentation of her actual birth, has claimed multiple different birth years, and has excuses that don't hold up to scrutiny as to why she has done so (e.g. she refused to access the digital copy of her South Carolina non-driver ID after she remembered it was "stolen" years earlier and went through a whole process of getting media assistance in replacing her documents from scratch that was unnecessary; the simplest possible explanation is she didn't want anyone seeing the 1917 birthdate on the old ID). I'm sure Virginia McLaurin was a nice enough person, and I know people are sensitive about criticizing anyone who has a connection to the Obamas, but she probably was never 113 years old and the reason for doubting it are the same as doubting almost any claim of such - because there's evidence to the contrary. Predestiprestidigitation (talk) 01:35, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

This is made egregious by the total lack of skepsis in the current text. A reader without knowledge of the topic would take it as a flat fact that the individual was one of the oldest ever, a super when in fact she probably was not. This is politics and a model wiki failure. When I saw the MSM blurbs I went right to the gerontology wiki and then came here to see if I would find something like this. I didn expect it to be this complete. 98.4.112.204 (talk) 09:12, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

The scrutiny apparently resulted in the current Note, better than nothing. 106 is outstanding ofc but it's not supercentenarian, which only about 1 in a thousand centenarians make. 98.4.112.204 (talk) 19:14, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

Maybe remove the "supercentenarian" and replace it by "centenarian", then. AgisdeSparte (talk) 02:51, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

111th birthday

Is there any confirmation of her 111th birthday? Timothy McGuire (talk) 04:59, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

Age

Her age should be in years and days because she is a supercentenarian. Jack M E 01 (talk) 15:46, 17 May 2022 (UTC)

Sources for ethnicity

I just looked through the sources, which are poor fluff-piece articles in second-rate news sites, no real significant coverage; none of them say she is Black, or African-American; several of them imply this and mention how she coos about her Black President with a Black Wife, but no article I could find actually discusses McLaurin's ethnicity directly. Elizium23 (talk) 18:10, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

what is your theory on the photos? Faked? A related phenotype? 98.4.112.204 (talk) 20:25, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

Photos are not reliable sources for the ethnicity or race by which someone chooses to identify. Elizium23 (talk) 15:43, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

So the reliable sources bogey works for this but not for the central claim to notability. Maybe slow down a lil bit and look at the merits of each article individually. 98.4.112.204 (talk) 13:34, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

The IrishTimes source added by @AgisdeSparte: says she was born to a Black family and so this important fact is cited and mentioned in the article to satisfy WP:EGRS. Elizium23 (talk) 02:59, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

Note also that under the Jim Crow Laws, it was sometimes very complicated to have birth certificates for Black Americans, which weren't recorded every time or were recorded with errors.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2018/09/11/birth-certificates-have-always-been-weapon-white-supremacists/

https://facetofacegermantown.org/many-americans-obtaining-birth-certificate-proves-challenging-alfred-lubrano-inquirer-staff-writer/ AgisdeSparte (talk) 03:06, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

Also, it was usual for those who didn't have birth certificates to put the date in Bibles, as she says about her birth :

https://www.wmbfnews.com/2021/02/27/were-looking-closure-family-trying-locate-bible-right-fathers-birth-history/ AgisdeSparte (talk) 03:15, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

I am not sure that it is proper for us to include comments like this in this article, since none of those sources have connected these cases with that of McLaurin's. It's WP:SYNTH. Elizium23 (talk) 03:16, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

TRTTD

The right thing to do would be to redact "supercentenarian" to "semisupercentenarian". I would do it but I want to see how this works out. Lycurgus (talk) 12:21, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

@Lycurgus I'm not sure I follow. Is there evidence that she was under 110 years old when she died? Elizium23 (talk) 15:42, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

(i'm lycurgus)@Elizium23, that's not how claims of being supercentenarian work. The situation of false claims of this status are so common that they are presumed false unless they have been verified by an entity that vets such claims. In this case the weight of the evidence is that the person was born in 1916 or later and the claim of there being a 'birth certificate in a bible' is clearly specious, worthless in establishing such a claim. You may want to look into how claims of being a super are verified. FWIW, as things stand now, extreme longevity is not an especial respecter of class, Calment notwithstanding, and many would be claimants have class origins consistent with making specious claims, it's very common. The reason for this is that current supers, and centenarians ftm, reach that status as a result of their superior genetics. That will likely change later this century. 98.4.112.204 (talk) 16:54, 18 November 2022 (UTC)