U.S. History fans will be interested to know that a second parchment manuscript copy of the Declaration of Independence has been found in a predictable spot: England. In the West Sussex Record Office, in fact, according to a story in the Boston Globe (http://tinyurl.com/Declare2).

Two Harvard University researchers, Emily Sneff and Danielle Allen, found the 1780s document in the archives of the little town of Chichester. They believe it was the property of the Duke of Richmond, who was supportive of the rebelling colonists. A photo of a section of the copy is shown, courtesy of the West Sussex Record Office.

Sneff and Allen postulate that the copy in England was probably commissioned by James Wilson of Pennsylvania, one of U.S. founding fathers. He signed the original Declaration of Independence, helped draft the Constitution, and was one of the six original justices on the Supreme Court.

The only other parchment version of the Declaration is the original, which is stored at the National Archives in Washington, D.C.