I have a different theory, unrelated to island events, as to how people can get more than 50 Elders.

When the game has been closed and is reopened it 'plays catch-up'; it checks how many tech points have been gained, how much food was collected, etc. If you look at the game logs you will see that all this catching up takes place with precisely the same timestamp. Among the things it checks is how many became Elders while the game was closed. Now,if a player has, say, 49 Elders when the game is closed, and the game calculates that another four have since reached that rank, it will be unable to say which was first, so makes all four Elders, giving rise to 53. Of course, since the 50 limit has been reached, no further Elders can be created.

i need more elders and didnt get an event on that yet a guess ill have to wait