Stunned historians discover a second handwritten, parchment copy of the Declaration of Indepenence, neatly stored, iventoried and categorized in this most likely of places...

Resting nicely in its proper place in a regional achive, sits an authentic copy of the Declaration.

A second handwritten copy of the Declaration of Independence has been found in England, to the delight of Harvard researchers who discovered it.

LOS ANGELES, CA (California Network) -- Until recently, there was just one known parchment copy of the Declaration of Independence. It rests on display at the National Archives in Washington D.C. where millions see it each year. But now, a second parchment copy has been found in a much less conspicuous place, the archives of the city of Chichester, in Sussex, England.

The document was discovered by Emily Sneff of Harvard, who was looking though the city's inventory of historical documents in search of a copy of the Declaration of Independence. She noticed one entry was listed as "parchment" which suggested it was an original.

The city's archives cooperated and they provided an image of the document. Sneff and her co-discoverer, Danielle Allen, traveled to England to have a look. They were not disappointed.

As it turns out, the parchment is a copy of the original, and is not the real deal. Instead, it was likely made by a humble clerk in the 1780s, commissioned specifically for the purpose. The signatures are not broken down by state as they are in the National Archives copy, but instead they are randomly written at the bottom.

The researchers believe that a patriot named James Wilson of Pennsylvania commissioned the copy. Wilson helped write the original draft of the Constitution and was one of the first justices on the Supreme Court.

The copy was possibly given to the Duke of Richmond, who was a revolutionary sympathizer who also gave support to the American revolutionaries.

The document will now undergo additional tests to confirm its authenticity. While it is not an original, it is still a historic piece. There is no word on what will happen to the document once authenticated.

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