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Thomas C. Lynch

American lawyer

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJul 12, 2026
Entity authorityQ15524936 ↗
Source-derived summary

Thomas Conner Lynch (May 20, 1904 – May 29, 1986) was an American lawyer who served as District Attorney in San Francisco and as Attorney General of California from 1964 to 1971.

Early life

Lynch was born in San Francisco in 1904 to Mary O'Conner and Patrick Lynch, an Irish immigrant from County Kerry. Lynch's mother died in 1906, and his father was killed in 1913 attempting to rescue a fellow worker while working on a sewer excavation. Subsequently raised by extended family members, Lynch attended Catholic grammar schools in San Francisco before attending Bellarmine College Preparatory and Santa Clara University. Lynch went on to attend law school at the University of San Francisco School of Law.

Following law school, Lynch was admitted to the bar in 1930 and worked as an insurance underwriter before being appointed an Assistant U.S. Attorney in 1933. Lynch later became chief deputy to Pat Brown following Brown's election as San Francisco District Attorney in 1943. Lifelong friends, Lynch and Brown had first met through mutual friends on trips to Yosemite.

Lynch was introduced to his future wife Virginia Summers Lynch by Pat Brown in 1928 at a dance at Camp Curry in the Yosemite Valley. The two later eloped to Lovelock, Nevada.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Thomas C. Lynch” is american lawyer. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Thomas, Lynch and American, not as a finished interpretation.

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—1904, 1986, 1964, 1971—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1904-01-01. For this dossier, Thomas, Lynch and American is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “american lawyer” 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

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 Jul 12, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q15524936. VIAF identifies the subject as 51250205. The Library of Congress control number is no91000192. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1904, 1986, 1964 and 1971.

Critical limits

Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. 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 “Thomas C. Lynch”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Thomas C. Lynch primary sources, Thomas C. Lynch archive and Thomas 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 “Thomas C. Lynch”?
  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 “Thomas C. Lynch” 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.