A centenarian is someone who lives to 100 years of age or more. We are seeing more of them as we live better and see amazing improvements in medical care and treatments. Supercentenarians are people who live to 110 and beyond.

There are a few groups which track these supercentenarians. First, their real age has to be verified — a difficult task in many cases. Many come from countries without established record keeping around births and deaths back in 1900. Therefore, many of these on the current supercentenarian roster are people from countries such as the United States, Japan, the U.K. and some Western European nations. The others linger on the Unverified List of Supercentenarians. They never get called up to the big leagues — the Verified List.

Guinness World Records have kept track of such people for years. Today, the Gerontology Research Group, made up of academics all over the world, keeps track and verifies all supercentenarian claims. The current list is available online — Wikipedians are also very good at keeping up to date and easy-to-read records, as well as biographies for many of the honourees. You can also track the oldest people on record.
 
I’ve developed a sort of hobby for myself, keeping up with who is on the list and who’s passed on. Being number one, means you’re the oldest verified person alive. Don’t get too excited though — on average, the honour tends to only last an average of eight months, since people aged 115 or 114 tend to be at higher risk of dying. For some, the title just lasts a few days and they pass the mantle to the next in line.

You grow fond of some of them. I kept up on newspaper reports of the world’s previous oldest person  — Gertrude Baines (115 years, 158 days) of Los Angeles, California. She was the daughter of slaves and lived to vote for Barack Obama. I was sort of sad the day she died.

You end up rooting for some. I think Walter Breuning (113 years, 190 days and counting) of Great Falls, Montana, currently the world’s oldest man and seventh oldest person is a hoot. He's always willing to entertain reporters. Leila Denmark (112 years, 57 days) is currently in 19th place. She was a practicing pediatrician until 103 and helped develop the pertussis vaccine back in the 1920s and 30s.

Every day I check in on Walter and Leila, to make sure they’re still ticking. They are extraordinary individuals who have defied science and outlived all current life expectations. Good genes, I guess. And speaking of good genes, we just lost Maggie Renfro (114 years, 69 days) back in January. Together with her sisters, Carrie Lee Thornton Miller (107 years) and Rosie Lee Thornton Warren (103 years), they were the world’s oldest siblings. They all died within five weeks of each other. Strange, how life and death work out sometimes.