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26 TWENTY-FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT
The number of visitors, however, is not nearly so accurate a measure
of our work as the number of items circulated. This figure increased
from 10,698 to 12,045. A visitor may or may not take any of the time
of an attendant, a document circulated certainly does. There was
also a modest increase in the number of written queries answered from
1,317 to 1,467.
The kinds of records used fall into two classes. The use of materials
primarily of genealogical interest, probate and land records, remains
fairly constant from year to year; the use of other materials may vary
widely; for example, a student of seals who appeared here last year
caused the circulation of original wills to soar; an author who is pre-
paring the biography of a Maryland governor could not come so often
last year as before and so the circulation of executive papers dropped.
A curious observation: when the Land Office moved in September
1958, it left behind the Abstracts of Deeds which occupy the whole
first deck of the stacks. During the course of the eleven months follow-
ing, the records were called for less than a dozen times and they were
used about that many times again by the members of our staff. It
should be noted though that the Land Office did remove the abstract
volumes for St. Mary's and Calvert Counties, covering the periods when
the original records of these counties do not exist.
There were approximately 150 requests for information received
by telephone which required some search of our records. A large
number of these requests came from other agencies of government.
RECORDS MOST FREQUENTLY CIRCULATED
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Times Circulated
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Record Scries
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1958-59
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1957-58
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1956-57
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Wills ............................................ ...................
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.. 1167
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1220
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1106
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Accounts .... ..............................................
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672
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768
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640
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Baltimore Countv Land Records ...............
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625
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587
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574
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Testamentary Proceedings ............................
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602
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756
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640
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Anne Arundel County Land Records........ ..
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575
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584
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455
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Church Records ...............................................
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522
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555
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515
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Wills. Original ...............................................
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428
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48
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82
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Charles Countv Land Records .....................
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424
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242
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256
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Inventories .......................................................
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566
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576
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555
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Charles Countv Wills .....................................
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292
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251
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186
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Prince George's Countv Land Records .......
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257
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171
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206
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Baltimore Countv Wills ........ .......................
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215
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257
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224
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Cecil Countv Land Records .........................
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206
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100
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24
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Inventories and Accounts .............................
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186
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216
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218
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Frederick Countv Land Records .................
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158
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144
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250
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Dorchester Countv Land Records..................
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127
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116
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85
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Anne Arundel County Wills .........................
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121
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91
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97
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Provincial Court Judgments
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121
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117
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159
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