6 THIRTY-FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT

Court. He followed this advice and was granted a hearing by the full
court. Mr. Skordas and I were present as witnesses. His appeal,
although documented, was refused by the court, especially since the
correction had to be made in the records of 1850. He then appealed
to the Circuit Court of Anne Arundel County, and this appeal is
still pending.

Another searcher looking for an ancestor who was naturalized in
Baltimore, wrote to us for a certified copy of the official record. We
searched the index which we had only received during the year from
the Court of Common Pleas and finding nothing we informed him of
the fact. Then at his insistence and after having been furnished the
date, we promised to search the record only to find that the volume
for that date was missing entirely. The difficulty now is that this
researcher has a certified copy of the record which his grandfather
procured some fifty years ago and he finds it difficult to believe that
the record has been lost since that time. He insists that a little search
on our part would discover it in our stacks and the implication is that
we are lax in our duties. He cannot understand that we are quite as
unhappy as he about the loss of a record and that we have searched
everywhere for it. Because we have kept copies of the receipts, we
know that we never received this record.

Again concerning the naturalization records, a searcher asked for
a certified copy of a record. The federal government does not permit
us to duplicate these records by photographic or other means, but any-
one can examine them. This curious rule makes it impossible for the
Archivist to certify a record and there is much need for this. This
searcher then appealed to the Court of Common Pleas of Baltimore
City and Judge Cardin issued a "show cause" order for me to appear
and explain why I will not certify the record.

Finally a subpoena was served on me by the sheriff of Anne
Arundel County to answer to a Bill of Complaint filed in Anne Arundel
County Equity Court challenging a statute having to do with the election
laws. Since the bill also named the Governor, the President of the
Senate, and the Speaker of the House, I considered that I was in good
company and decided to let these gentlemen fight it out. In any case,
I am only charged with having the act in my possession and to that I
can only plead guilty.

MORRIS L. RADOFF
Annapolis
April 8, 1970