US 'birth certificate' copy found in England

CHICHESTER, England - British experts will carry out tests to try to determine how a rare copy of the US Declaration of Independence found its way to an archive in southern England.

The handwritten manuscript, only the second such parchment in existence, had been stored for more than 60 years in a strongroom among miles of documents in the West Sussex Record Office, until its significance was revealed by Harvard University researchers Danielle Allen and Emily Sneff.

Other copies and printed versions of the Declaration exist, but the only other ceremonial parchment is the Matlack Declaration, which dates from 1776 and is kept behind glass at the National Archives in Washington.