Draft talk:List of last survivors of historical events

Oppose recreation

I nominated this list for deletion in November, 2024 (it's still on my watchlist, which is how I know about this draft), and my concerns about the inclusion criteria have not been assuaged. The inclusion criteria has arguably gotten worse. Why are witnesses of weddings eligible for inclusion? Are we to assume that, in 60 years time, the last attendee of the Wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer is eligible for inclusion in this list? "Participants in notable legal proceedings such as trials..." is also an inclusion criteria. Really? The last OJ juror? It's not too farfetched - the draft list includes the "Last United States Senator who participated in the impeachment trial of Andrew Johnson". And how are we defining a participant in a trial anyways? And, good grief, the "Last member of the President's Commission on Aviation Security and Terrorism"? Are we going to include every last survivor of every run of the mill governmental committee with a Wikipedia article?

There's also bad sourcing present in this draft, which is itself a very light reworking of the list that was deleted in November. Mabel M. Williams is noted as the "Last known Radium Girl". The source, which is a family or funeral home written obituary, doesn't assert that. As bad as poor sourcing is the total lack of sourcing on many of these entries. AfD may not be cleanup, but this isn't AfD. It's AfC, and this list is not ready for the mainspace.

Don't get me wrong - this list is very interesting. I did learn a great deal of trivia every time I looked at it. And, quite frankly, I personally think Wikipedia should have more lists like this. Nevertheless, Wikipedia isn't a repository for trivia, and this is a poor-quality and poorly-sourced list.

To quote from my AfD nom, "Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. Given the woefully broad inclusion criterion of this list, this list is. Wikipedia is not a repository of loosely associated topics. This list is... WP:CROSSCAT also applies. Per WP:LSC, "as Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and not a directory, repository of links, or means of promotion, and should not contain indiscriminate lists, only certain types of lists should be exhaustive. Criteria for inclusion should factor in encyclopedic and topical relevance, not just verifiable existence."

As of this draft, I would strongly oppose recreation. Tagging User:JSwift49, who has submitted this draft. schetm (talk) 05:51, 18 August 2025 (UTC)

Yep, this concept is what taxonomies were created for. This is absolutely WP:CROSSCAT. I am not sure why it is marked as a "promising draft". Is there an intention to mine this for something else? There is no indication this could ever be suitable as a list page. But as a taxonomy of all the pages that mention X is/was the last survivor of Y (broken down by subject), this is just a taxonomy and categories should be used. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 06:40, 18 August 2025 (UTC)

I can do more work on this for sourcing. A lot of them seem to be based on the topic articles' list of members. Will withdraw submission until improved.

However I do think the criteria are an improvement. It’s not saying every member of every trial or wedding would be included, but that major historical events in those categories could qualify for inclusion. So yes I think the last OJ juror and last survivor of Charles and Diana would be appropriate inclusions.

As far as WP:CROSSCAT, I think this could fall under the intersection being a “culturally significant phenomenon”. Not only have there been two books written specifically about last survivors, but there is regular dedicated coverage of individual cases in reliable sources.

One way to fix the eligibility would be to only include people who have received coverage specifically discussing their status as a last survivor. Thoughts? JSwift49 11:02, 18 August 2025 (UTC)

"who have received coverage specifically discussing their status as a last survivor" That would be a useless list. If the subject is an average Joe whose main claim to fame is longevity, the article has no particular historical value. Dimadick (talk) 18:37, 18 August 2025 (UTC)

I think if last survivors have dedicated coverage related to their status, that itself would count as historical value, and removing entries without such coverage would be a good way to filter out trivia. It’s why we have entire articles on people like Ivan Martynushkin and Grace Hanagan. But this wouldn’t exclude people who are otherwise notable, either. JSwift49 22:01, 18 August 2025 (UTC)

On the other hand, it seems this list is best suited to people who are primarily notable for their status as a last survivor; such as Martynushkin and Hanagan as JSwift49 (talk · contribs) lists. Anything else just invites WP:OR like the last iteration, where just about anyone could qualify. Pace Dimadick (talk · contribs) there are some people who are notable (according to Wikipedia policy) simply because of their longevity -- like Matilda McCrear, the last known survivor of the transatlantic slave trade. However, there are other lists which cover these topics, and I would like to maybe float a proposal that a List of lists of last survivors is perhaps most appropriate. wound theology◈ 07:57, 19 August 2025 (UTC)

Perhaps a way forward would be to create a List of last survivors of disasters and go from there - just create one list at a time. That would avoid the CROSSCAT concerns, and tighten the inclusion criteria, as, in this case, we'd be listing survivors, not witnesses. Another list could be List of last Holocaust survivors (and perpetrators and liberators, perhaps). I just don't see any room in Wikipedia for a list, like this draft/the one deleted last year, where "Last member of the Imperial Court of the Second Mexican Empire" can be included. schetm (talk) 13:17, 19 August 2025 (UTC)

My initial thinking was along the lines of both of yours, reason I brought back back the draft was to see actually if any lists could be spun off. Though tbh I'd now argue that listing the last people present at non-military major events (e.g., last signer of the Treaty of Versailles, who received dedicated coverage ) would contribute more to the encyclopedia than listing the last survivors of lots of plane accidents. Also per WP:NLIST, would we want sources discussing last disaster survivors specifically? The two books on last survivors I've seen (linked in the article) discuss last survivors much more broadly as a category.

The concerns about trivia/sourcing/WP:OR in the draft are valid – to start, I'd be happy to give this another try with only people specifically notable for being last survivors, and see what people think (I think this topic could be done in a way that's not WP:CROSSCAT). JSwift49 23:26, 19 August 2025 (UTC)

Proposal to recreate

Have cleaned up the article since the above discussion, with the following changes:

• Created more specific criteria for inclusion. Namely, that someone's last survivorship of a historical event/phenomenon must be notable, meaning someone must have received historiographical or contemporary coverage specifically describing their status, and the event/phenomenon they survived has to be notable in the context of world history. Also further specified the types of events that could (only if these criteria are met) qualify for the list.
  • A standard exists now where it didn't before. Where more precisely to draw the line on coverage can continue to be hammered out if needed. It's worth noting the level of coverage last survivors receive can vary between historical and more contemporary entries.
• Removed entries where I couldn't find sourcing, added sources for remaining unsourced entries, and checked/updated existing sources I could access.
• Removed WP:OR entries which were correct, but where I could not find any source specifically discussing an individual as a last survivor and thus indicating notability. For example, the Treaty of Ghent was a major event, and you can look up the death dates of all the signers, but no one seems to have cared to actually write about who the last surviving signer was. (Some of these types of entries also appeared incorrect e.g. the last known diplomat of the Peace of Westphalia.)
• Removed entries where the event was not notable in the context of world history. These were things such as little-known U.S. presidential commissions, or events which are not particularly notable when compared to other global events in their category (e.g. why include the Dawson Massacre, Standard Air Lines Flight 897R or Brazilian Academy of Letters over the many similar historical skirmishes, plane crashes and academic organizations). Some I left in I think are borderline so not opposed to more being removed.
• Removed trivial categories of people not tied to one historical event such as "last person to have their name written on the Eiffel Tower".
• Removed some last survivors of events/phenomena which only had one or two people involved; for example, there was only ever one Hetman of all Ukraine.

One can't really put a specific time limit on a historical event, so as far as I'm concerned, an event can be the activities of a group or existence of a phenomenon (and the two books on last survivors of historical also include entries related to those). Therefore, I think this list can consider the activities/presence of some groups of people as historical events, and can include last surviving members in historical organizations or people with historical legal statuses. Differentiating between 'groups of people' and 'events' is also not always clear-cut, for example, the last physicist involved in the Soviet atomic bomb project is a member of a group, but specifically within the context of one event. Or, the last silent film actor is a member of a group, but also the effective last surviving participant in the silent film era.

Initially I was thinking of splitting the article off into smaller articles, such as List of last survivors of disasters and List of last Holocaust survivors which was suggested above. However, I now think keeping one main list for most topics is more optimal.

• Making separate lists for types of events would result in the inclusion of last survivors of less notable events specific to their category (e.g. last survivors of many random plane crashes), but also the exclusion of last survivors of highly notable events that may not fit into one broad category (e.g. last participant in the Boston Tea Party or last Nuremberg prosecutor).
• I also haven't found much about e.g. last survivors of disasters specifically that would justify a standalone WP:NLIST. Last survivors as a whole, however, have two books (even if one is admittedly more of a trivia collection, don't see why The Last Leaf isn't enough on its own). Many news articles listed as sources are also specifically dedicated to individuals' last survivor status.
• Splitting off last surviving military veterans specifically here does make sense to me as otherwise they would take up about half of the page. Last speakers of languages could also be argued to be possessing an ability more than participating in a historical event/phenomenon. Last surviving veterans and language speakers also both have at least some dedicated coverage of their own.

It's clear from the AfD there is an audience for this article, and while it can't be perfect and I do understand where the opposition comes from, I think it can be recreated in a way that actually discusses people whose last survivor status specifically is notable, and moves away from indiscriminate trivia.

Pinging everyone who participated in the AfD and the above discussion. @Schetm @Sirfurboy @Dimadick @Wound theology @Bkatcher @PlotinusEnjoyer @Reywas92 @4meter4 @TompaDompa @35.139.154.158 @User1519203 @Athel cb @Killuminator @Cakelot1 @Adam8410 @Meganinja202 @Zxcvbnm @Clarityfiend @Kennyboy1999 @Liz @Just Step Sideways JSwift49 02:45, 6 September 2025 (UTC)

Witnesses are not survivors of events. Where is the historic event (or survivor) of people executed for blasphemy? Holding an office (royal governor, congressman) is not an event, nor is being the last person to live in a century. Lots and lots of other questionable "events" (e.g. Atlantic slave trade) and significant "historical" (first football game?) events. Clarityfiend (talk) 12:25, 6 September 2025 (UTC)

It's clear from the AfD there is an audience for this article - I don't think that is clear at all. There may well be an audience for a more focussed article, but I don't see the utility, nor the audience, for a random collection that includes the last surviving wife of a famous guy, the last person to attend a first boy scout camp (even though it was a Boy's Brigade camp), and the last person to survive one of a couple of famous shipwrecks, but not all the shipwrecks. This is too unfocused. For instance, if it were meant as an index to pages of notable lasts, then it should restrict itself only to those who have a page. If it were last survivors of shipwrecks, or other focused subjects, it could meet an information need, but this eclectic and very incomplete collection surely can never be encyclopaedic. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 19:08, 6 September 2025 (UTC)

Support, but I think the list needs to majorly trimmed down. I do think it is a popular article that a lot of people like referring to. I think one way of trimming it down as alluded by Sirfurboy is to have only those with articles about them referenced on the page. That way it is more of an index for those people; in other words, those people are there because they are famous already or because they are famous for being the last one of an event, not because they are a random who is last one of a famous event (there will always be a last one). I think no wiki article about them = not on the list is a good way of trimming it down, and a fair compromise. User1519203 (talk) 22:54, 7 September 2025 (UTC)

Comment — I still think this should be trimmed down, per User1519203 (talk · contribs). I think it should primarily, if not exclusively, list people who are notable because they are last survivors and not incidentally a last survivor. wound theology◈ 03:40, 8 September 2025 (UTC)

I can get behind the standard proposed here. Something like, a person's last survivor status must have either outright caused, or materially added to, their overall notability. In that case, I would propose that we also include such people who have Wikipedia articles in other languages (e.g. Alexander Vannovsky), and people currently without articles who have dedicated, specific coverage about themselves due to their last survivor status (Samuel Speed, the last surviving British convict sent to Australia, could be an example,).

To @Clarityfiend's point, I touched on this a bit above, but I don't see how we can draw a line between historical events that take place in one time and place (e.g. disasters) or events/phenomena that have a broader scope. The Atlantic slave trade may have lasted many years, but it is still a specific, finite thing in history that people carried out and were impacted by. JSwift49 01:22, 9 September 2025 (UTC)

Nobody considers a whole industry an event. Whaling was not an event. Neither are wars or anything else you just happen to find interesting. Events are limited in duration and location, and that duration doesn't span centuries and the locations are not spread out over continents, like the slave trade. Clarityfiend (talk) 05:16, 9 September 2025 (UTC)

Cut out the trivia please

Some of these entries are absurd. To give an example: The only reason why Margaret Ann Neve is technically the "last verified person to live in the 18th century" is that those who verify such claims didn't care to look. It's not difficult to find well documented cases of people who passed away in 1904 at the age of 104. For example, Rebekah Birks (1799-1904) is well documented by census records spanning 1851-1901, together with her birth and marriage certificate and the birth certificates of her children. There is nothing notable about her, and she was undoubtedly survived by countless others who were born in the 1700s. The Atlantic article doesn't even attempt to answer the question it raises, and it doesn't support the claim. Renerpho (talk) 18:20, 19 February 2026 (UTC)