Illinois Code § 35

§ 35.

Every deed, mortgage, power of attorney, conveyance, or other writing, of or concerning any lands, tenements or hereditaments, which, by virtue of this act, shall be required or entitled to be recorded as aforesaid, being acknowledged or proved according to the provisions of this act, whether the same be recorded or not, may be read in evidence without any further proof of the execution thereof; and if it shall appear to the satisfaction of the court that the original deed, so acknowledged or proved and recorded, is lost or not in the power of the party wishing to use it, the record, or a transcript thereof, certified by the recorder in whose office the same may be recorded, may be read in evidence, in any court of this state, without further proof thereof; provided that if said deed, mortgage, power of attorney, conveyance, or other writing, or the acknowledgment thereto shall recite that the grantors therein sealed said instrument but the record of such instrument in the recorder's office fails to show the seal of said grantors, it will be presumed that said instrument was properly sealed and that the omission of such seal arose in the transcription thereof in the recorder's office. (Source: Laws 1941, vol. 1, p. 416.)