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Paul Thoms

Canadian land surveyor and politician

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionMar 31, 2026
Entity authorityQ20880449
Source-derived summary

Paul Slade Thoms (February 19, 1932 – July 4, 2012) was a land surveyor and politician in Newfoundland. He represented Bonavista North from 1971 to 1975 in the Newfoundland House of Assembly.

The son of James Ernest Thoms (a teacher and principal) and Gertrude Helen Bridger (a midwife who also worked with Dr. Grenfell), he was born in Garnish and was educated in Middle Brook. Thoms had seven siblings including Leslie Thoms, who was also part of the House of Assembly. Thoms married Elsie Barrow. He served in the Royal Canadian Air Force from 1949 to 1954. Thoms was president of the Gambo Red Cross. From 1967 to 1972, he owned and operated a farm in partnership with his brother Jim who, later worked as an NTV news reporter.

Thoms was ordained an Anglican deacon in 1991 and became a priest in 1992.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Paul Thoms” is canadian land surveyor and politician. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Paul, Thoms and Canadian, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewStrongest as a route into the people, institutions and dated events that shaped the subject’s public record. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1932, 2012, 1971, 1975—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1932-02-19. For this dossier, Paul, Thoms and Canadian is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “canadian land surveyor and politician” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 31, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q20880449. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1932, 2012, 1971 and 1975.

Critical limits

Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Paul Thoms”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Paul Thoms primary sources, Paul Thoms archive and Paul research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Paul Thoms”?
  2. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
  3. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Paul Thoms” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.