CHAPTER 110

PRESERVATION OF PROBATE RECORDS

AN ACT providing for the Preservation and Reproduction of Land and Probate Records.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the State of Delaware in General Assembly met:

Section 1. That the Recorder of Deeds and the Register of Wills, in each of the Counties of this State, upon the advice and approval of the Resident Associate Judge of the particular county, may deliver to the Public Archive Commission, with the consent of the State Archivist, for preservation in the Public Archives of the State of Delaware, at Dover, any volume of land records or probate records in their official custody, the age and conditions of which render its continued use by the public inadvisable, and the Recorder or Register shall take a receipt for the same and said receipt shall be recorded in the office from which such Volume or record is taken.

Within a reasonable time after any such Volume or record has been delivered to the said Commission as aforesaid, the State Archivist shall make a photostat copy of its contents and shall certify that such contents are complete and correct, and such certificate shall be included in such photostat copy. Such photostat copy shall be substantially bound, Bound shall match the currents volumes of land records or probate records as the case may be so far as is practicable and shall be delivered to the Recorder or Register from whom the original Volume was received, and the said Recorder or Register, as the case may be, is authorized to issue certified copies of any photostat copy of any records contained in such volume, and any such certified copy shall be admissible evidence in any Court of Justice in the same manner and entitled to the same weight as certified copies made from the original volume.

The State Archivist is authorized to issue certified copies Archivist may issue Certified of any instrument or record or other matter contained in any such volume, so delivered to the said Commission as aforesaid, which certified copy, shall be admissible in evidence in any Court of Justice in the same manner and entitled to the admissible in evidence same weight as certified copies made by the official from whose office such volume was received.

Approved April 22, 1931.