Christian Mortensen

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Birth record of Christian Mortensen

Thomas Peter Thorvald Kristian Ferdinand Mortensen, known as an adult as Christian Mortensen, was born in Skaarup, Denmark, on August 16, 1882 and baptized in Fruering Church that December 26. By the time he died on April 25, 1998,^[1] he had become the oldest man ever whose age is not disputed, although the Guinness Book of World Records still ranks him second to the disputed case of Shigechiyo Izumi. Besides his baptismal record, other records include the 1890 and 1901 census enumerations in Denmark, and church confirmation in 1896.

In 1903, he emigrated to the United States, and lived in various areas and worked in various trades including as a milkman and in a can factory. In Denmark he had worked as a farmhand and apprenticed as a tailor. Christian apparently was married only briefly and never had children. He enjoyed an occasional cigar, and, very unusually for a supercentenarian, was known to show a bit of feistiness even in his final years. In August 1997, for instance, he expected to get the Guinness "oldest person" title, but on August 14th Guinness named Marie-Louise Meilleur of Canada, age 116, the "world's oldest person." Mr. Mortensen, angered, said they "just did that to spoil my birthday" (he turned 115 only two days after). Later, however, when he found out that compatriot Sarah Knauss was older too (116 as well), he said "c'est la vie." In any case, Guinness should have given him the title of "oldest living man", a category they did not implement until mid-2000.

In 1978, he rode his bicycle to the Aldersly Retirement Community in San Rafael, California, and lived there for the rest of his life, being another 20 years.^[2]^[3] He is the oldest recognized man ever to die in the United States and the oldest recognized person ever born in Denmark. At his death he was the second oldest recognized living person behind Sarah Knauss. He was 115 years and 252 days old.