| Marie Laure du Serre-Telmon | |
| Birth: | 4 January 1860 San Joaquín, Anaco, Anzoátegui, Venezuela |
| Death: | 8 January 1977? Ivry-sur-Seine, Île-de-France, France |
| Age: | 117 years, 4 days? |
| Country: |  VEN FRA
|
| Disputed | |
Marie Laure du Serre-Telmon (born Maria Laura [Spanish: María]: 4 January 1860 – 8 January 1977?) was a Venezuelan-French woman whose apparent supercentenarian status has been debunked.
At the time of her death, the age reported on her death certificate would have made her the oldest validated person of all time, as well as the first person in recorded history to reach the ages of 114 through 117. However, it now appears to have been a case of confusion between sisters, as the woman who died in 1977 was the younger sister of the girl born in 1860.
Biography
Marie Laure du Serre-Telmon was born on 4 January 1860 in San Joaquin, Venezuela. Her father was a French citizen who emigrated to San Joaquin, and her mother was Venezuelan.
According to French GRG correspondent Cyril Depoudent, Marie Laure had four older siblings, born in 1850, 1852, 1854, and 1857 in San Joaquin, and two younger siblings, born in 1863 in Nancy (mainland France) and 1866 in Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni (French Guiana). Her family had to leave San Joaquin in 1860 because of the civil war, so Marie Laure was baptized in Maturin, Venezuela on 23 August 1860. Her family then returned to mainland France, but later settled in French Guiana.
Marie Laure du Serre-Telmon married Alfred Jules Arsene Francois Cor on 18 September 1882 in Cayenne; they divorced in 1907. Cor later remarried, while Marie Laure du Serre-Telmon returned again to mainland France, settling in Paris with her sisters and son Henri Cor.
An investigation published in 2021 found that Laure died in Montomorency in 1948 aged 88, and that her identity was later unintentionally assumed by her younger sister Octavie, who had a tendency to round down her age in order to appear younger. In her later life, Octavie checked into the Charles-Foix Hospital in Ivry-sur-Seine under the name of Marie Dussère, resulting in the confusion.
Octavie died on 8 January 1977 in Ivry-Sur-Seine, allegedly aged 99 (but actually 103), although the certificate suggests a final age of 117 years, 4 days.