ARCHIVIST OF THE HALL OF RECORDS 57

and the "housekeeping" records or the records of internal management
shall not be considered records of a court for the purposes of this
section and shall be subject to disposal as described.

The question is, therefore, whether the abstracts to which you
refer fall within the above requirement. In your letter they are called
abstracts of conveyances and you apparently are not referring to any
original deeds or mortgages or other instruments of conveyances that
may be stored with you.

If these abstracts of conveyances are not part of the land records
supplied by the respective clerks but are only copies thereof and if,
as you state, they have all been microfilmed in accordance with Section
181 of Article 41 and that they would be available on request for
viewing then we see no reason why the records cannot be turned over
to the various county historical societies as was suggested.

We refer you further to an opinion of this office dated December
4, 1963 wherein it was stated that to turn over these records in this
matter would be in effect to destroy them so far as the responsibilities
of the Hall of Records Commission are concerned.

I trust this answers your inquiry.

Very truly yours,

Carville M. Dowries
Assistant Attorney General

ACTS OF ASSEMBLY

There were two acts passed at the General Assembly this year
which consolidated the Hall of Records and the Land Office, Chapter
488 which gave the terms of the consolidation and Chapter 489 which
was an amendment to the Constitution subject to referendum. The
referendum was held November 8, 1966 at the next general election
after the passage of the Act. It was Question Number 16 on the ballot
and it carried by a vote of 272,984 to 110,037. It carried Baltimore
City and every county in the State except Garrett which was lost by a
small margin, 718 for to 785 against.

CHAPTER 488
(House Bill 965)

AN ACT to repeal and re-enact, with amendments, Section 1 of Article
54 of the Annotated Code of Maryland (1957 Edition), title "Land