He was accepted to Louis Epstein's list as of his 1 November 2010 update, aged 110 years, 2 days.
Goossenaerts was born in Horendonk-Essen, Antwerp province, to father Josephus "Jozef" Goossenaerts and mother Joanna Van Ginneken, and still lives in Antwerp. Notably, Antwerp was the home of previous Belgium's oldest titleholder Bernardina Van Dommelen, who died on 16 April 2010.
Goossenaerts married Catharina Van Meel, nine years his junior, on 18 January 1930. The marriage lasted for 67 years until Van Meel's death on 2 July 1997, aged 87. Out of their five children, three are living: Maria Goossenaerts, Frans Goossenaerts, and Jozef Goossenaerts, supposedly named after his grandfather. Irma Goossenaerts, another daughter, died at 78, and another child, Marcel Goossenaerts, died at 74.
Jan Goossenaerts worked as a mason during his life, and retired at 65.
He moved into a nursing home, Sint Michaël, in Essen, the northernmost tip of Antwerp province, in 2007, then aged almost 107.
Goossenaerts is reported to still be in good health, and takes walks every day in the courtyard of his nursing home. His secret to longevity is reported to be "to work hard and eat 2 slices of bread with pear syrup every morning."
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| Goossenaerts at an early 110th birthday party, pictured centre, with international GRG correspondents Bart Versieck (right) and Anthony Croes-Lacroix. |
More than 250 people attended Goossenaerts' 110th birthday party, including the mayor and Belgium's Flemish Minister-President. He also received a letter from the king and queen of Belgium. Over ten radio and television reporters were present at that occasion.
Goossenaerts is currently the 89th oldest living validated supercentenarian out of a total of 90 on both the GRG and Louis Epstein's lists, as well as the world's fifth-oldest living male, and will break the all-time record for the oldest non-emigrant Belgian male on record on 18 January 2011, Aimée Rensonnet's 111th birthday, when he surpasses Louis Marion (10 October 1893 - 28 December 2003), who died at the age of 110 years, 79 days.
21 December 2010 - Jan Goossenaerts is now the third-oldest person in Belgium following the death of Aimée Rensonnet on 15 December 2010.
Update: Jan Goossenaerts died on 21 March 2012, aged 111 years, 143 days. Click for a report on his death in Dutch.
At the time of his death, he was the world's third-oldest living male and the 56th-oldest male on record, as well as the oldest man ever to pass away in Belgium. (Belgium-born Jan Machiel Reyskens, who emigrated to the Netherlands, died in 1990 aged 111 years, 241 days).
The title of Belgium's oldest living male, a position Goossenaerts had held for the past five years and 38 days, now passes to Oscar Joseph Coulembier, born 31 December 1905.
With his passing, Shelby Harris of Illinois, United States, born on 31 March 1901, now becomes the world's third-oldest living male at 110 years, 356 days.
Goossenaerts was also Europe's oldest male at the time of his death, a title he had held for the last year and 274 days, following the death of Stanley Lucas of Bude, Cornwall, England, aged 110 years, 157 days. This position now passes to Spanish Francisco Fernández, born on 24 July 1901.
His death also leaves only one remaining living Belgian supercentenarian, Germaine Degueldre of Hainaut province, at 111 years, 177 days. Degueldre, born on 26 September 1900, is the country's oldest resident from 23 June 2011, and as of 21 March 2012 is fifteen days short of becoming the second-oldest Belgian on record.