20 ELEVENTH ANNUAL REPORT

The task of arranging the Testamentary Papers, begun several
years ago, continued during the year. At the beginning of this per-
iod tentative arrangement had been completed for the years 1659 to
1789; this work has now been done through 1760, leaving only seven-
teen years of the record still untouched. The terms "tentative ar-
rangement" are used advisedly as these materials were at one time
in the past arranged partially by years and partially by size so that,
as the work proceeds, documents for the earlier period are constantly
being discovered. This unhappy state of affairs has prevented the
numbering of the documents and, therefore, the preparation of index
cards must await the completion of the last box.

The Baltimore County Testamentary Papers, transferred during
the year, were accompanied by a booklet prepared in the office of
John H. Bouse, Register of Wills for Baltimore City: List of Orig-
inal Papers, Records and Documents made Prior to April 28, 1788
Which Were Transferred to the Hall of Records Annapolis, Maryland.
Unfortunately this booklet was not indexed. However, since it was
unindexed, we decided that the materials should be arranged in
chronological order before a card index was prepared at the Hall of
Records. During the year, the Original Wills and the Accounts of
Sales were rearranged.

REPAIR AND PRESERVATION

For the period July 1, 1945 to January 1, 1946 the repair room
was operated by one full-time worker and a second who assisted for
one or two days a week. From January to March there was only
one worker, and from March through the end of the fiscal year there
were two full-time workers. The amount of work still to be done in
our collection of State records is large, and with the addition of the
County records, some of which are in deplorable condition, we need at
least two full-time workers.

The total amount of work accomplished this year exceeds the
total of last year, previously our biggest year, by over 1, 400 pages.
This amount of work is imposing when it is considered that some
individual volumes, for example, the court records of Charles County,
were in such bad condition that the pieces of each page were fitted