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Pennsylvania Department of State

registration authority

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 9, 2026
Entity authorityQ7163719 ↗
Source-derived summary

The Pennsylvania Department of State is a cabinet-level state agency in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The department is headed by the secretary of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

Editorial summary

“Pennsylvania Department of State” enters the record as registration authority. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Pennsylvania, Department and State can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current 27-word lead offers orientation but no explicit four-digit date, so chronology should not be assumed. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1919. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Pennsylvania, Department and State.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Pennsylvania Department of State” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Pennsylvania, Department and State provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 9, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7163719. VIAF identifies the subject as 134879717. The Library of Congress control number is n81102517. 3 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. 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

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Pennsylvania Department of State”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Pennsylvania Department of State primary sources, Pennsylvania Department of State archive and Pennsylvania 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 “Pennsylvania Department of State”?
  2. What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
  3. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Pennsylvania Department of State” 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.