n.the act of entering a legal document in a public registry or records officeMcFarland 1941, 171With the increase in the volume of county business a single series of the eighteenth century might be divided and subdivided several times. As pointed out by Dr. Evans and Miss Edythe Weiner in the article, “The Analysis of County Records,” the physical facts of recordation in even the easily recognizable series present numerous problems in preparing an undistorted logical guide to county archives.Noll 1949a, 40This difficulty has been overcome in a recent Maryland statute covering the recordation of instruments in Baltimore County only. In this county, we understand, the hour and date the instruments are microphotographed are considered the official time of recordation and the microphotograph is the official copy for the purposes of evidence.Am. Jur. 2d 1962, “Records” § 47Both the necessity and the effect of recordation rest solely on statute. The recording of deeds and other instruments affecting the title to land is purely a system of legal institution, and not of common right or abstract justice. At common law in England, there was no system of registration, and the rule between claimants of the same title was found in the maxim “prior in temporare potior est in jure.” At an early date in the country, however, to obviate frauds arising out of secret conveyances, statutes were enacted in the several jurisdictions requiring the registration of conveyances in order to render them valid as against subsequent bona fide purchasers.Peterson and Peterson 1985, 82To exercise his right to transfer the copyright, the owner must document the transfer in writing and sign the transfer document. The transfer of ownership may be recorded in the Copyright Office and is, therefore, often referred to as “recordation.” No infringement action can be brought by the new owner until the transfer instrument is recorded.FDOS 2017, 9–10This rule provides standards for the electronic recording of real property documents in those Florida counties in which the county recorder elects to accept electronic real property documents for recordation.the act of completing a process that formally transforms an information object into a recordTrever 1946, 98Pennsylvania was the first State to adopt microfilming—and the first use of it was made in our recordations in the Corporation Bureau of the Department of State.NYSA 2013Recordation is the process of making a document a record. For instance, you may create multiple versions of a report, but only the final version will be the record.UNF 2023, 8On or after October 1, 2002, any person preparing or filing a document for recordation in the official records may not include a social security number in such document, unless required by law.Principally Canadianthe state of being a record, especially with the sense of a record’s shifting between fixity and mutability in its physical and social contextsLoewen 1994, 165Let us begin at the beginning. What is happening to the concept of the “record?” As some might put it, to what extent does “recordation” determine “recordness?” If the context of creation plays a significant part in the definition of “record,” surely the record has evolved as contexts have evolved.Brothman 2002, 341For capturing the subtle relationship between record and evidence, form and content, context and content, I suggest that the action noun, “recordation,” might be more suitable. The term, “recordness,” with its proprietorial pretentions, seems inadequate to capture what is really a complex social process. “Recordation” points to a more subtle and flexible concept of records as tokens involved in an on-going social exchange process, one involving unending mutual cultural negotiation of meaning between people and objects. As observers have already suggested of electronic documents, recordation implies a subtle reading of the nature of the relations between fixity and fluidity, immutability and transience, context(s) and content(s), and document producer and document consumer. It requires some degree of recognition that, because it is a social object, “the document changes by virtue of staying the same.”
Notes
In a county clerk’s office, recordation1 (also referred to as recording) is the opposite of filing. When a person records a document in such an office, the clerk makes a copy (usually digital, in the past micrographic, and originally by hand) and the original is returned to the deed holder. Most records in county clerks’ offices are filed. In such situations, the filer gives the record to the clerk, who retains the record.
