Elizabeth Bolden - Age Records

Age Records

Elizabeth Bolden was verified in April 2005 as being the oldest documented resident of the United States since the death of Emma Verona Johnston the previous December. She displaced Bettie Wilson, who had previously been the oldest known American.

Bolden regained the oldest living person title following the August 27, 2006 death of María Capovilla. This was officially confirmed on September 17, 2006 by Guinness World Records. She had previously held the title from the August 30, 2005 death of Hendrikje van Andel. On December 9, 2005, Capovilla was announced as authenticated older. Bolden became only the second person to hold the title twice, the first one being world record holder Jeanne Calment.

Bolden is the oldest North American to have lived in three different centuries, and the second-oldest person worldwide to have done so, after the previously mentioned María Capovilla.

In July 2006, Bolden entered the list of the all time top ten oldest verified people. At the time of her death aged 116 years 118 days she was and still is the seventh-oldest undisputed person ever documented.

In the 1900 U.S. Census, she is recorded as being nine years old and born in August 1890, and in the 1910 U.S. Census she is recorded as 19 years old, already married with a child. With the destruction of the Fayette County, Tennessee records in a 1925 fire, the family had guessed that she was born in 1891, but investigation proved she was a year older.

When Bolden died, the Los Angeles based Gerontology Research Group and Guinness World Records named the successor of the title of the world's oldest living person as Emiliano Mercado del Toro of Puerto Rico. He was the first man to hold the title in over 20 years.