ARCHIVIST OF THE HALL OF RECORDS 5

LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL

To THE HONORABLE

THE HALL OF RECORDS COMMISSION

ANNAPOLIS, MARYLAND

Gentlemen:

I am glad to report that after many years of effort—and of pain—
we completed this year the microcopying of the County Land Records
of Maryland. With the exception of Baltimore City, which is progress-
ing through the 1920's, we now have a copy of every extant conveyance
of real property ever made in Maryland from the beginning of the
first counties through 1949. Conveyances after 1949 are microfilmed
and deposited at the Land Office in Annapolis as a part of the current
business of the County Clerks of Court.

No other state, I think, has all of its county land records in film
copy, although work toward this goal is in progress in Delaware, North
Carolina, and elsewhere. This project was begun in a quiet era, in
order to concentrate research materials in one place for the convenience
of the scholar; it was finished to provide security copies of the indis-
pensable records of government in an era of turmoil and insecurity.
The completed project will serve both purposes, although the earlier
records are not needed in Civil Defense and the later ones are hardly
useful to the historian.

We have now turned our attention to the Probate Records of
Maryland. The Wills and the Orphans' Court Proceedings had been
done in the past by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
Their terminal date was 1850, as it had been in the case of the Land
Records. We propose to bring these two series, plus the Inventories
and Accounts up to the present and to keep them current in the future.
We are also continuing to film church records, and this year, we finished
the filming of the Quaker Records in Maryland. Our next publication,
scheduled for fiscal year 1965, will be a descriptive catalogue of the
records at Homewood (Orthodox) and Stony Run (Hicksite).

I should especially like to call your attention to two publications
of this year. The second volume of The County Courthouses and Records
of Maryland, and the Court Records of Prince George's County 1696-
1699. The first of these, described in "Publications", earned for the