How old was Grace O'Brien?

[Forfarian]

I see the registrar wasn’t satisfied with just writing illegitimate, he also had to say John Cooper “died four years ago” to remove all doubt 

That's actually pretty well standard practice when a widow has a child.

I suppose it's because the law assumes that the mother's husband is the father of a child, so to be absolutely clear it needed to be spelled out.

[Forfarian]

A search of the Scotland's People for deaths where the deceased's age was 110 to 120 produces 88 results. However the majority are married women indexed under both their maiden and their married surnames, so the actual number of individuals is probably about 50.

All but two of those allegedly aged over 113 are from the Hebrides in the first few decades of registration so would be difficult if not impossible to verify, but there are many more recent ones whose age it should be possible to check against a birth record.

Removing duplicates and those born before the start of civil registration in 1855 leaves 26 people who have died in Scotland and whose age was recorded as 110 or more.