Among the 588,063 graves in the EveryStone archive with both a birth and a death year, 1,679 belong to people who lived to 100 or beyond. That is about one grave in 350. They lie in 1,189 cemeteries across 34 countries, from village churchyards in Lithuania to Ukrainian parish cemeteries in Ontario and Illinois.
We counted them by age, decade of death and country. We read many of our dates by machine from photographs, and the oldest records carry the worst mistakes, so we checked the extreme cases one by one against their headstone photos.
How we work out an age
EveryStone computes each age from the two dates on the record: the death year minus the birth year, minus one more if the person died before their birthday came round that year. That last step needs the month of birth and the month of death. When either month is missing, the site cannot tell whether the birthday had passed, so the age it shows may be one year too high.
The iron cross of Anna Kirilyuk in the Old Polish Cemetery of Kamianets-Podilskyi shows the month problem. Her plaque gives her death as 14 April 1974 and her birth as 15 or 16 April 1873, since the painted day is hard to read. She died a day or two short of her 101st birthday, so she was 100. With years alone the sum would say 101.
The plaque of Sofiya Kalenichenko in Kyiv reads only "1887 - 1987". She may have turned 100 that year, or died a few months before she could. Our record says 100; she was 99 or 100.
Left: Anna Kirilyuk (1873-1974), Old Polish Cemetery, Kamianets-Podilskyi. Right: Sofiya Kalenichenko (1887-1987), Svyatoshinske Cemetery, Kyiv.
Of our 1,679 centenarians, 886 have a month on both dates. The other 793 rely on at least one bare year, and 304 of them sit at exactly 100, so they may have been 99. Counted strictly, the firm total is 1,375.
How old they were
Most centenarians die soon after the milestone. Of the 1,679:
- 1,512 (90%) were 100 to 104
- 155 (9%) were 105 to 109
- 12 were 110
The archive goes no higher: an earlier clean-up removed the records that claimed more than 110.
Age at death of the centenarians in our archive. The gilt part of each bar is the records with a year only on one or both dates.
The count at 110 is too high. Demographers reckon that about one centenarian in 1,000 reaches 110, and they accept such ages only after checking documents from early life. Our 12 records at 110 amount to seven per 1,000. We looked at every one of their photos, and the stone supports four.
More centenarians in recent decades
Before 1930 our archive holds only 19 centenarians in total. The 2000s hold 372 and the 2010s 549. The 2020s, with seven years recorded so far, have 197.
Graves of people aged 100 or more, by decade of death.
Raw counts follow the size of the archive, which holds far more recent graves than old ones. Among graves of people who died in the 1950s, 11 in every 10,000 belonged to a centenarian. In the 1990s it was 24, in the 2000s 40, and in the 2010s 64, about one grave in 156.
Centenarians per 10,000 graves with both dates, by decade of death.
The trend matches what national statistics show for the living. The UK's Office for National Statistics counted 16,600 centenarians in 2024, twice the 8,300 of 2004.
Country by country
The table lists every country with at least 10,000 dated graves in the archive. Between them they hold 1,462 of the 1,679 centenarians.
| Country | Centenarians | Graves with both dates | Per 10,000 | Share aged 90+ |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Kingdom | 203 | 55,326 | 36.7 | 7.2% |
| Germany | 192 | 45,610 | 42.1 | 11.1% |
| Denmark | 173 | 30,132 | 57.4 | 11.0% |
| Lithuania | 156 | 42,302 | 36.9 | 7.3% |
| Slovakia | 144 | 104,759 | 13.7 | 5.3% |
| Poland | 121 | 48,416 | 25.0 | 5.9% |
| Finland | 84 | 32,897 | 25.5 | 7.0% |
| Czechia | 83 | 69,301 | 12.0 | 5.2% |
| Austria | 80 | 20,784 | 38.5 | 10.8% |
| Sweden | 68 | 11,527 | 59.0 | 10.6% |
| Ukraine | 68 | 45,119 | 15.1 | 4.4% |
| Belgium | 59 | 11,737 | 50.3 | 8.7% |
| Hungary | 31 | 17,937 | 17.3 | 5.1% |
Slovakia has the most graves and one of the lowest rates. Denmark and Sweden have the highest rates among the large samples, close to six centenarians per 1,000 graves. Smaller samples go higher still: the Netherlands (31 of 4,816) and France (32 of 5,117) both pass 60 per 10,000.
The last column explains most of the spread. Where more of the people in our sample lived past 90, more also lived past 100. Germany, Denmark, Austria and Sweden sit near 11% aged 90 or more. Ukraine, Czechia and Slovakia sit near 5%. We cannot say how much of that reflects real differences in lifespan and how much reflects which cemeteries volunteers photographed and in which years.
Men and women: a question we cannot answer
The ONS splits its figures by sex: in 2024 women made up 13,600 of the UK's 16,600 centenarians, about four in five. Our records cannot: they carry no sex field, and guessing from first names would put our own errors into the numbers.
Eight stones that hold up
For individuals we chose people who died before 2000, and we kept only those whose dates we could read on the stone in the photo.
Nadiia Kryvoruchko is the oldest in the archive whose stone bears out the record. Her plaque, below an enamel portrait of a smiling woman in a headscarf, gives 2 October 1875 and 10 November 1985: 110 years and a month. She lies in the same Kamianets-Podilskyi cemetery as Anna Kirilyuk. No register entry in our hands confirms the birth date, so the age rests on the plaque alone.
Efrosiniya Goncharova's oval plaque in Lelekivka gives 20 March 1880 and 28 June 1987. She was 107.
Left: Nadiia Kryvoruchko (1875-1985), Old Polish Cemetery, Kamianets-Podilskyi. Right: Efrosiniya Goncharova (1880-1987), Starobalashivske-Lelekivka Old Cemetery, Lelekivka.
Mikhalina Verbitskaya, born 13 February 1883, died on 9 June 1990 at 107. Her granite stone in the Old Polish Cemetery of Zhmerynka carries an etched portrait and a dedication from her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
In Lithuania, a family stone at Žagarės Raktuvė New Cemetery names Juozas Beržinis and Monika Beržinienė: he lived 1842-1938, she 1859-1966. With years only, Monika was 106 or 107.
Left: Mikhalina Verbitskaya (1883-1990), Zhmerynka Old Polish Cemetery. Right: Monika Beržinienė (1859-1966), Žagarės Raktuvė New Cemetery.
Two more stones stand in Ukrainian parish cemeteries in North America. In the Saint Volodymyr Ukrainian Cemetery in Oakville, Ontario, a grey granite stone remembers "our beloved grandpa" Moisey Dubowsky, 28 August 1891 to 30 April 1992: 100 years and eight months. In the Saint Nicholas Ukrainian Cemetery in Chicago, a flat marker for the Loboyko family gives John 1889-1977 and Mary 1896-1997. Mary outlived John by twenty years and died at 100 or 101.
Left: Moisey Dubowsky (1891-1992), Saint Volodymyr Ukrainian Cemetery, Oakville. Right: Mary Loboyko (1896-1997), Saint Nicholas Ukrainian Cemetery, Chicago.
Of the other three stones that support an age of 110, two share the gap in Kalenichenko's plaque: the birth year stands alone, with no day or month. A Lithuanian obelisk at Juodaičiai gives 1827 to 3 September 1937, and a Polish family stone at Kluczewo gives 1887-1997. With bare birth years, both women were 109 or 110. The third, a plaque in Belgium reading 1900-2010, belongs to a death after 2000, so it stays in the totals only.
Find them in the archive
Each grave named above has a page with its photo, its position in the cemetery and the dates as we hold them. If you know one of these families, or spot a date that does not match the stone, use the Suggest edits button on the grave page to tell us. Start with the cemeteries of Ukraine, Lithuania or the United Kingdom, or browse the full directory.