World's oldest family in Karnataka, stakes claim in Guiness

With a family of 13 siblings in Karnataka claiming a combined age of over 880 years, it has staked claim with the Guinness World Records to be the oldest living family in the world.
68-year-old Ramakrishna Manja, who is the eighth among the siblings, said today he has approached the Guinness authorities on February 12 with their claim.
The Guinness authorities responded the next day and have asked Ramakrishna to give proof of date of birth of the family members--eight brothers and five sisters.
The Manja family, which was brought up at Kargal Colony near the famous Jog Falls in Shimoga District, has also been asked to send two photographs one--of all 13 siblings--and other is of the entire family.

"We don't have recent photo of all siblings and the family together, so we are planning to meet at Shimoga in first week of March, we are still finding out the process of Guinness World Records--what they have said is it will take 6 or 8 weeks for their verification process to complete," Ramakrishna told PTI here.
Ramakrishna, a retired registrar of the Chennai-based Institute of Mathematical Sciences who is settled in Bangalore, said he approached the Guinness authorities after seeing a news report on February 11 about a family in London entering into Guinness World Records claiming to be the oldest family.

The Brudenell siblings of London claimed to be the oldest family in the world--after adding up an amazing 855 years.

"That is when I started totalling the age of my siblings," he said, adding, "when I totalled it was 880 plus more than that of the London family, that is when I filed an application staking our claim."
"In fact our eldest sister aged about 73 years died a couple of years back; otherwise the combined age would have come to over 950 years," he said. The age of the siblings currently ranged from 56 years to 79 years.
"I am really elated to say that ours is the oldest living family on this earth if we go by the Guinness World Records," he said.