This was forwarded unto I by mi bredren:

This Nana is our oldest(known) living ancestor.

Born the daughter of one of our enslaved ancestors, now aged 125 is oldest person in world.

A CARIBBEAN woman has laid claim to being the oldest person alive, after church records proved her to be 125. Elizabeth Israel, the daughter of an enslaved Afrikan, celebrated her latest birthday last week. Three years of painstaking research has confirmed that she was born on Jan 27 1875. She worked until she was more than 100. Her mother, Magdelaine Israel, was brought to Dominica in the 19th century, and became a centenarian herself. Miss Israel, known as Pampo, has suffered a minor stroke and is blind, though her recollections of times past remain clear. She did not drink alcohol as a girl, although she smoked a pipe, and now attributes her survival to her diet. She said: "I ate dumpling, lots of fish, meat and crab. And don't forget the coconut milk either. Never eat a heavy meal after 6.00pm then drink a bush tea." Brought up with four siblings, she went to work on a plantation aged 25, picking peas for 2s.6d per month, a penny a day for nine hours' work. Rough tracks were the only means of travel and she remembers one trip to Roseau, the capital, for her wedding. "We went by the estate boat," she said, although the date is unclear. After marrying Ernest she was known as Minetta George and, having graduated to the role of supervisor, directed the grinding mill and ox-carts, and the processing of vanilla, limes and coconuts. She continued working until 1979, retiring at the age of 104. "Even old people here always knew her as an old woman," said Lucien DaSilva, a neighbour in a wooden chattel house on tenant land at Portsmouth, on Dominica's north-west coast, "and I felt she was a very special lady." The latest Guinness Book of Records listed Sarah Clark Knauss, a former Pennsylvania seamstress, as the oldest alive at 119, but she died a month ago in Allentown.