LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL

To THE HONORABLE

THE HALL OF RECORDS COMMISSION

ANNAPOLIS, MARYLAND

Gentlemen:

Perhaps the most critical problem facing the Hall of Records is
the bleak physical preservation of the records of our State in a tense
unstable world. In Maryland we are doubly concerned. In World War
II it was our responsibility to insure the preservation in some form of
the historical records of the State, a universal archival function. But
now that we have accepted responsibility through our records manage-
ment program for the working records of the State we are much more
seriously involved.

At the beginning of World War II we were children in a child's
world of conventional weapons. We could not imagine the destructive
power of the atom bomb or of the hydrogen bomb. We began with the
premise that a copy of the record stored underground a few miles from
a prime target area would suffice—and it did, because chance, the
imagination of our scientists and British bombers gave us the atom
bomb and not our enemies. In accordance with this assessment of the
situation we set to work to film all of the records of value which we
then held in our custody—it was fortunately very little. As soon as the
film was done we removed it to the basement of the C. Burr Artz
Library at Frederick. Before the project was over we had removed some
1,300 reels. They survived the war, as did the originals, and since that
time copies have been made for the British Museum, the Huntington
Library, The Library of Congress and the Genealogical Society of the
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

It is our feeling that these records, which now exist in so many
microfilm copies, as well as those which have been printed need not be
protected further. Following the war the Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter Day Saints in cooperation with the Hall of Records undertook
to film county records of genealogical value. When the project was
over, after two years of work, the land records and the basic probate
records had been completed through the year 1850. The records covered