When any deed or conveyance affecting real estate has been recorded more than twenty years, and has not been proved or acknowledged, according to law, when so recorded, but has been subsequently duly proved, and read upon the trial of any litigated cause in any of the courts of record of this state, and a copy of such deed or conveyance has been preserved in a bill of exceptions taken and filed in such cause, and a transcript of the proceedings therein has been filed in the supreme court or any district of the court of appeals, upon proof that the deed or conveyance has been lost or destroyed, the copy thereof contained in such transcript, duly certified under the hand and seal of the clerk of the proper court, may be read in evidence in any suit.
§ 490.320, RSMo
Effective 1/2/1979