Christian Mortensen
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Thomas Peter Thorvald Christian 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 he had become the oldest man ever thoroughly documented to the satisfaction of investigating scholars, although the Guinness Book of World Records ranks him second to the less thoroughly documented Shigechiyo Izumi. Besides his baptism 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.
In 1978 he moved to a retirement community in California, and lived in that state for the rest of his life. 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.pl:Christian Mortensen