A 115-year-old US-born great-grandmother from Spain is likely to be the world’s oldest person, a Guinness World Records consultant said on Wednesday, following the death of 118-year-old Frenchwoman Andre, who held the title, AFP reported.

Lucille Rendon, a French nun known as Sister Andre, in 2022 when she became the age dean of the planetPhoto: Daniel Cole/AP/Profimedia

Maria Brañas Morera has been living in the Santa Maria del Tura nursing home in the town of Olot, located in northeastern Spain, for 20 years. The house said it would host a “small party” behind closed doors in the coming days to “celebrate this special occasion”.

“She is healthy, surprised and grateful for the interest,” the shelter said.

Guinness World Records senior gerontology consultant Robert D. Young said it was “likely” that Morera was the oldest person in the world. “However, this has not been confirmed at this time,” he wrote in an email to AFP.

Guinness has yet to make an official decision after reviewing official documents and interviewing Morera’s family, said Young, who is also director of the Gerontology Research Group’s Supercentenarian Research Database.

María Branias Morera survived the 1918 flu pandemic (also known as the Spanish flu), two world wars, and the Spanish Civil War.

The centenarian’s youngest daughter, 78-year-old Rosa Moret, praised her mother’s good health, which she said was due to “genetics.”

“He never went to the hospital, he never had anything broken,” Rosa Moret told regional Catalan television on Wednesday.

María Branias Morera was born in San Francisco (western United States) on March 4, 1907, shortly after her Spanish family moved from Mexico to the United States.

In 1910, her family moved to New Orleans (southern USA), and in 1915 returned to Spain. In 1931, she married a doctor who died at the age of 72.

He had three children – one of whom has already died – 11 grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren.

French sister Andre, born Lucille Rendon on February 11, 1904 in Ales, southern France, was the world’s oldest known person as of April 2022. She died in her sleep on Tuesday night at her nursing home in Toulon, in the south of the country. France.

No official body awards the title of age dean, but experts agree that Sister Andre is the oldest living person whose marital status has been confirmed.

The Guinness Book of Records set the record after the death of Japanese Kane Tanaka at the age of 119.