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Terri Lynn Land

American politician

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 11, 2026
Entity authorityQ3518752
Source-derived summary

Terri Lynn Land (born June 30, 1958) is an American politician who served as the 41st Michigan Secretary of State from 2003 to 2011. A member of the Republican Party, Land was elected to the Republican National Committee in 2012. She was the Republican nominee for the 2014 United States Senate race in Michigan, losing in the general election to Democrat Gary Peters. Land currently serves on the Board of Governors of Wayne State University.

Early life and education

Land was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan. She grew up in Grandville, Michigan, graduating from Grandville High School, and attended Hope College in Holland, Michigan, where she received a Bachelor of Arts in political science. In 2009, Land was awarded an honorary doctorate degree from Davenport University.

Politics

Early political career

In 1980, Land joined the Grandville Planning Commission. At age 23, Land ran for the Michigan House of Representatives, unsuccessfully challenging incumbent Democrat Jelt Sietsema. From 1992 to 2000, she was the elected Clerk of Kent County, Michigan's fourth-largest county.

Editorial summary

“Terri Lynn Land” enters the record as american politician. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Terri, Lynn and Land can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA productive starting point for separating a subject’s documented career from later reputation and commemoration. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1958, 2003, 2011, 2012—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1958-06-30. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Terri, Lynn and Land.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Terri Lynn Land” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Terri, Lynn and Land provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3518752. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1958, 2003, 2011 and 2012.

Critical limits

Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. 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 “Terri Lynn Land”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Terri Lynn Land primary sources, Terri Lynn Land archive and Terri 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 “Terri Lynn Land”?
  2. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
  3. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Terri Lynn Land” 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.