Any person holding any unregistered deed or claiming title? thereunder, executed prior to the first day of January, 1920, may have the same registered without proof of the execution thereof by making an affidavit, before the officer having jurisdiction to take probate of such deed, that the grantor, bargainor or maker of such deed, and the witnesses thereto, are dead or cannot be found, that he cannot make proof of their handwriting, and that affiant believes such deed to be a bona fide deed and executed by the grantor therein named. Said affidavit shall be written upon or attached to such deed, and the same, together with such deed, shall be entitled to registration in the same manner and with the same effect as if proved in the manner prescribed by law for other deeds. (1885, c. 147, s. 2; 1905, c. 277; Rev., s. 981; 1913, c. 116; 1915, cc. 13, 90; C.S., s. 3310; Ex. Sess. 1924, c. 56; 1951, c. 771.)