60 TWENTY-FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT

April 3, 1959

Dr. Morris L. Radoff, Archivist
Hall of Records
Annapolis, Maryland

Dear Dr. Radoff:

We have your recent letter in which you ask whether the
Hall of Records Commission is authorized to certify third-
reader copies of Acts of the General Assembly of Maryland.
You state that the applicant for certification of these docu-
ments is presenting his own personal copies to you with the
request that you certify as to these copies after comparing
them with the original engrossed Acts of Assembly within
your official custody.

The Commission's power to certify public records and
documents is set forth in Article 41, Section 177, Annotated
Code of Maryland (1957 Ed.), which reads, in pertinent
part, as follows:

"Every State, county, city, town or other public
official in the State in custody of public records or docu-
ments is hereby authorized and empowered, in his discre-
tion, to turn over to the Commission and deposit for
preservation any original papers, official books, records,
documents, files, newspapers, printed books, or portraits,
not in current use in his office, and when so surrendered,
and accepted by the Commission, copies may be made
and certified under the seal of the Commission upon
application of any person, which certification shall have
the same force and effect as if made by the officer
originally in charge of same, ......."

The basic import of this Section is to enable those need-
ing certified copies of public records and documents to obtain
them from the Commission after the deposit of the original by
the proper custodian. The Section provides, with reference
to such records and documents, that "when so surrendered, and
accepted by the Commission, copies may be made and certi-
fied under the seal of the Commission upon application of any
person ......." It is, of course, the authenticity of the record
within the Commission's official custodianship which provides
the essential foundation for its powers of certification. The
Section contemplates, as the usual means for effectuating these
powers, that the Commission will make and certify to copies
but this is a permissive or directory provision only and is not
intended to be operative as an exclusive means for the Com-
mission's certification to the authenticity of documents.

It is our understanding from your letter that it is a
printed copy of a third-reader, either a first or second edition,
that eventually becomes the original engrossed and enrolled