International Correspondents Who Volunteer to Identify and Validate Supercentenarian Claims

January 10, 2012; Mr. Mark E. Muir of the San Francisco Bay Area with considerable investment of time and effort has developed a new Supercentenarian Forum using Zeta Board, Internet Software, to facilitate private scientific discussions among our international correspondents. Please check it out when you have some time and let us know what you think.

January 10, 2012; Over the last fifteen years, the GRG has established a broad volunteer network of correspondents throughout the world who supply us with translations into English of source documents, like Birth and Marriage Certificates, in their native language needed to validate the claims of worldwide Supercentenarians. In recognition of their work, a partial list of these Country Correspondents follows:

1. USA:
Mr. Robert D. Young, Atlanta, GA, Senior Claims Investigator for the GRG, Moderator, World's Oldest People Group [See Ref. 1 below for the WOP Charter], and Se nior Gerontology Consultant for the Guinness Book of World Records; Voice: 404-803-2045; E-mail: robertdouglasyoung@yahoo.com
Mr. Louis Epstein, Putnam County, New York, Chairman of the Committee; E-mail: le@main.put.com
Mr. E. A. Kral, Wilbur, NE, Mid-Western States; Voice: 402-821-3060
Prof. Thomas T. Perls, M.D., Director, New England Centenarian Study, Boston University; E-mail: thperls@bu.edu
Prof. John R. Wilmoth, Ph.D., Demographer of the Center for the Economics and Demography of Aging at UC Berkeley (2232 Piedmont Avenue; Berkeley, CA 94720-2120; Voice: 510-642-9688; E-mail: jrw@demog.berkeley.edu)
URL: demog.berkeley.edu/~jrw/
Mr. Donald B. Gennery, GRG Biostatistician, NASA/JPL; Pasadena, CA; E-mail: dgennery@earthlink.net
Mr. Mark E. Muir, Woodbridge, VA, Correspondent for the Mid-Atlantic Region
E-mail: calvin625@yahoo.com (preferred method of contact)
Telephone: 703-910-3135 (Deaf person; phone number will reach interpreter first.)

2. Canada:
Prof. Bertrand Desjardins

3. UK (England, Scotland, Wales), Ireland:
Mr. Andrew Holmes aholmesgrg@gmail.com
Ms. Melissa Page

4. France:
Mon. Laurent Toussaint
Mon. Luc Le Lay
Mon. Guillaume Veillet
Prof. Jean Marie Robine robine@valdorel.fnclcc.fr
Mon. Martin Miet martin.miet@yahoo.fr

5. Portugal:
Mr. Filipe Prista Lucas, GRG Senior Claims Investigator

6. Spain:
Sr. Miguel Quesada ( cerceda05@yahoo.com)

7. Italy:
Giovanni Alunni, Senior Correspondent agiox@libero.it
Paolo Scarabaggio, Alternate Correspondent pascar@gmail.com

8. Switzerland:
Mr. Thomas Breining (and Austria)

9. Germany:
Thomas Breining and
Stefan Jamin (and Eastern Europe)( stefan.jamin@gmx.de)

10. Poland:
Karol Wejchert

11. Russia:
Dmitry Sudakov
Dr. Leonid Gavrilov, Ph.D., University of Chicago

12. Greece
Prof. Dimitrios Kardamakis, M.D., Ph.D., University of Patras Medical School d.kardamakis@yahoo.gr

13. The Netherlands
Mr. Gert Jan Kuiper

14. Belgium:
Prof. Michel Poulain, Université Catholique de Louvain, BELGIUM and michel.poulain@uclouvain.be
Mr. Bart Versieck, GRG Senior Editor: bversieck@gmail.com
Mr. Peter Vermaelen makila123@yahoo.com
Mr. Anthony Croes-Lacroix scarface1812@hotmail.com

15. Finland:
Mr. Anti Hervonen

16. Sweden:
Mr. Foti Tillo

17. Japan:
Hamish Todd, British Museum, London, UK
Ken Matsuoka
Stefan Gelow
Dr. D. Craig Wilcox, Okinawa Centenarian Study
Tom Li

18. South Korea
Jong Bhak, Ph.D., Director jongbhak@yahoo.com
Personal Genomics Institute and Theragen Bio Institute

19. China:
Currently vacant

20. India:
Mr. Udaya Revathi Udayashankar
Dr. Raj Kumar dr_rajkumar@fastmail.fm
Ravi Chawla seniorsworldchronicle@gmail.com

21. Australia:
Prof. John McCormack, Senior Lecturer
Health Sciences
La Trobe University
Melbourne
Bundoora Victoria 3083
AUSTRALIA
E-mail: j.mccormack@latrobe.edu.au
Mobile: 0407 351 356 or +61 3 9479 5734
FAX: 03 479 5257

22. Mexico, Central, and South America:
Currently vacant

23. Jamaica: Mr. Maurice Harrison

24. Brazil:
Mr. Stanley R. Primmer stanley_primmer@hotmail.com
Prof. Cassio M. Turra cmturra@gmail.com
Departamento de Demografia/Cedeplar
Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais
Av. Antonio Carlos 6627, sala 3055
31270-901 - Belo Horizonte -MG- Brasil

25. Egypt, South Africa, and Central Africa:
Currently vacant

26. Middle East:
Currently vacant

If you would like to apply for the position of Country Correspondent for your own country and you feel comfortable translating source documents from your native language into English and are on the computer on a frequent basis, read the Birthday/Obituary Section of your local newspapers, please contact Dr. L. Stephen Coles at scoles@ucla.edu. Note that you may need to contact government officials in your home country from time to time and must be willing to sign our Standard GRG Policy agreeing to safeguard original documents and contact information about subjects, their next of kin, and family members in a confidential manner.

Ref 1.

September 13, 2009; The Charter for the World's Oldest People Group is as follows:

1. Collect and post demographic data about persons aged 108 and older;

2. Assist in the validation of such data, worldwide, based on three independent source documents needed to prove the claim. This may include accurate translation of documents by our correspondents from the original source language into English. We will also help to perform statistical analysis of the data for publication in scientific/medical journals, according to various demographic criteria.

3. Collect photographs of such persons for posting on the Internet.

As such, the goal of the WOP Group is to obtain a historical list of the entire set of persons aged 110 and older who are validated. (We begin our validation process at age 108 for "candidates").