ARCHIVIST OF THE HALL OF RECORDS 25

of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and that positive
copies of this film were deposited at the Hall of Records. You will
also recall that in 1949 the General Assembly passed an act requiring
Clerks of Court in the counties and the Clerk of the Superior Court
of Baltimore City to prepare each year a microfilm copy of all land
instruments recorded in the course of the year and to send this film to
the Land Office in Annapolis. We have, therefore, insurance copies
of all our land records from the beginning of each county through 1850
and from 1949 to the present. It has been the purpose of our land
records project to fill the gap of approximately one hundred years.

The table below will indicate at what point we found ourselves
at the end of the fiscal year. Much of this filming has been done in
previous years, but we feel that in the last year substantial progress
was made. Frederick County, which was begun only a year ago, was
completed; and Baltimore County which had come up to 1922, was also
finished. While the years involved in Baltimore County seem few it
must be remembered that these were years of frenzied activity in land
development—the number of volumes filmed was 1,0401 Prince
George's County is listed below as being complete through 1949. I
have done this because the film is usable in its present form; however,
an unfortunate change in the electrical supply of the courthouse has
made it impossible to complete the necessary retakes. Wicomico
County, which was begun during the year, was brought up to 1930;
and Montgomery and Carroll Counties were begun, but since none of
the film is ready for use they are not listed in the table. We have
hopes that both Kent and Talbot Counties will be started this year.

Status of County Land Records Project June 30, 1959
Anne Arundel County........................................... 1851-1949 (complete)

Baltimore City...................................................1851-1861

Baltimore City Block Books ................................1851-1953 (incomplete)

Baltimore County .................................................1851-1949 (complete)

Calvert County ......................................................1851-1952 (complete)

Caroline County ..................................................1851-1950 (complete)

Cecil County ........................................................1918-1949

Frederick County ..................................................1851-1949 (complete)

Howard County ......................................................1850-1949 (complete)

Prince George's Countv .......................................1851-1949 (no retakes)

Queen Anne s County!"...........................................1851-1949 (complete)

Wicomico County ..................................................1867-1930

CIRCULATION

For the first time in some years, the number of searchers who
visited the Hall of Records declined; the figures are 1,933 for fiscal
year 1958 and 1,736 for fiscal year 1959. But fiscal year 1959, never-
theless, saw the second largest number of visitors in our history.