The History of Fingerprints QUESTION & ANSWER FORUM - HELP WITH HOMEWORK The History of Fingerprints Click the arrow to the right of a language to translate Why Fingerprint Identification? Fingerprints offer a reliable means of personal identification. That is the essential explanation for fingerprints having replaced other methods of establishing the identities of persons reluctant to admit previous arrests. 1 The science of fingerprint identification stands out among all other forensic sciences for many reasons, including the following: Has served governments worldwide for over 100 years to provide accurate identification of criminals. No two fingerprints have ever been found alike in many billions of human and automated computer comparisons. Fingerprints are the basis for criminal history foundation at every police agency on earth. Established the first forensic professional organization, the International Association for Identification (IAI), in 1915. Established the first professional certification program for forensic scientists, the IAI's Certified Latent Print Examiner (CLPE) program (in 1977), issuing certification to those meeting stringent criteria and revoking certification for serious errors such as erroneous identifications. Continues to expand as the premier method for identifying persons, with hundreds of thousands of persons daily added to fingerprint repositories worldwide.

For more than a century, has remained the most commonly used forensic evidence worldwide - in most jurisdictions fingerprint examination cases match or outnumber all other forensic examination casework combined. Fingerprints harvested from crime "scenes lead to more suspects and generate more evidence in court than all other forensic laboratory techniques combined. 2 " Is relatively inexpensive for solving crime. Expense is an important factor because all agencies must balance cost, timeliness and thoroughness for various types of investigations. For example, DNA is as ubiquitous as fingerprints at most crime scenes, but costs typically 100 to 400 times more than fingerprint analysis for each specimen, and can require additional months or years before analysis is complete. Thus, fingerprints and DNA are harvested from serious crimes such as murder, but often fingerprints are the primary evidence harvested from burglaries, vehicle break-ins, etc. Other visible human characteristics, such as facial features, tend to change with age, but fingerprints are relatively persistent.

Barring injuries or surgery causing deep scarring, or diseases such as leprosy damaging the formative layers of friction ridge skin, finger and palm print features have never been shown to move about or change their unit relationship throughout the life of a person (and injuries, scarring and diseases tend to exhibit telltale indicators of unnatural change). In earlier civilizations, branding or maiming were used to mark persons as criminals. The thief was deprived of the hand which committed the thievery. Ancient Romans employed the tattoo needle to identify and prevent desertion of mercenary soldiers from their ranks. Before the mid-1800s, law enforcement officers with extraordinary visual memories, so-called "camera eyes," identified previously arrested offenders by sight alone. Photography lessened the burden on memory, but was not the answer to the criminal identification problem. Personal appearances change. Around 1870, French anthropologist Alphonse Bertillon devised a system to measure and record the dimensions of certain bony parts of the body. These measurements were reduced to a formula which, theoretically, would apply only to one person and would not change during his/her adult life. The Bertillon System was generally accepted for thirty years.

But the anthropometric measurement system never recovered from the events of 1903, when a man named Will West was sentenced to the US Penitentiary at Leavenworth, Kansas. It was discovered there was already a prisoner at the penitentiary, whose Bertillon measurements were nearly the same, and his name was William West. Upon investigation, there were indeed two men who looked very similar. Their names were William and Will West. Their Bertillon measurements were close enough to identify them as the same person. However, fingerprint comparisons quickly and correctly determined they were two different people. (According to prison records publicized years later, the West men were apparently identical twin brothers and each had a record of correspondence with the same immediate family relatives.) Prehistoric Ancient artifacts including carvings similar to friction ridge skin have been discovered in many places throughout the world. Picture writing of a hand with ridge patterns was discovered in Nova Scotia. In ancient Babylon, fingerprints were used on clay tablets for business transactions. BC 200s - China Chinese records from the Qin Dynasty (221-206 BC) include details about using handprints as evidence during burglary investigations.

Clay seals bearing friction ridge impressions were used during both the Qin and Han Dynasties (221 BC - 220 AD). AD 1400s - Persia The 14th century Persian book "Jaamehol-Tawarikh" (Universal History), attributed to Khajeh Rashiduddin Fazlollah Hamadani (1247-1318), includes comments about the practice of identifying persons from their fingerprints. 1600s In a "Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London" paper in 1684, Dr. Nehemiah Grew was the first European to publish friction ridge skin observations. Dutch anatomist Govard Bidloo's 1685 book, "Anatomy of the Human Body" also described friction ridge skin (papillary ridge) details. In 1686, Marcello Malpighi, an anatomy professor at the University of Bologna, noted fingerprint ridges, spirals and loops in his treatise. A layer of skin was named after him; "Malpighi" layer, which is approximately 1.8 mm thick.

No mention of friction ridge skin uniqueness or permanence was made by Grew, Bidloo or Malpighi. 1788 - Mayer German anatomist and doctor J. C. A. Mayer wrote the book Anatomical Copper-plates with Appropriate Explanations containing drawings of friction ridge skin patterns. Mayer wrote, “Although the arrangement of skin ridges is never duplicated in two persons, nevertheless the similarities are closer among some individuals. In others the differences are marked, yet in spite of their peculiarities of arrangement all have a certain likeness” (Cummins and Midlo, 1943, pp 12–13). Mayer was the first to declare that friction ridge skin is unique. 1823 - Purkinje In 1823, Jan Evangelista Purkinje, anatomy professor at the University of Breslau, published his thesis discussing nine fingerprint patterns. Purkinje also made no mention of the value of fingerprints for personal identification. Purkinje is referred to in most English language publications as John Evangelist Purkinje.

1858 - Herschel The English first began using fingerprints in July of 1858, when Sir William James Herschel, Chief Magistrate of the Hooghly district in Jungipoor, India, first used fingerprints on native contracts. On a whim, and without thought toward personal identification, Herschel had Rajyadhar Konai, a local businessman, impress his hand print on a contract. The purpose was was to "... to frighten [him] out of all thought of repudiating his signature." The native was suitably impressed, and Herschel made a habit of requiring palm prints--and later, simply the prints of the right Index and Middle fingers--on every contract made with the locals. Personal contact with the document, they believed, made the contract more binding than if they simply signed it. Thus, the first wide-scale, modern-day use of fingerprints was predicated, not upon scientific evidence, but upon superstitious beliefs. Herschel's fingerprints recorded over a period of 57 years As his fingerprint collection grew, however, Herschel began to note that the inked impressions could, indeed, prove or disprove identity.

While his experience with fingerprinting was admittedly limited, Sir William Herschel's private conviction that all fingerprints were unique to the individual, as well as permanent throughout that individual's life, inspired him to expand their use. 1863 - Coulier Professor Paul-Jean Coulier, of Val-de-Grâce in Paris, published his observations that (latent) fingerprints can be developed on paper by iodine fuming, explaining how to preserve (fix) such developed impressions and mentioning the potential for identifying suspects' fingerprints by use of a magnifying glass. 3 , 4 1877 - Taylor American microscopist Thomas Taylor proposed that finger and palm prints left on any object might be used to solve crimes. The July 1877 issue of The American Journal of Microscopy and Popular Science included the following description of a lecture by Taylor: Hand Marks Under the Microscope. - In a recent lecture, Mr.

Thomas Taylor, microscopist to the Department of Agriculture, Washington, D.C., exhibited on a screen & view of the markings on the palms of the hands and the tips of the fingers, and called attention to the possibility of identifying criminals, especially murderers, by comparing the marks of the hands left upon any object with impressions in wax taken from the hands of suspected persons. In the case of murderers, the marks of bloody bands would present a very favorable opportunity. This is a new system of palmistry. 1870s- 1880 - Faulds During the 1870s, Dr. Henry Faulds, the British Surgeon-Superintendent of Tsukiji Hospital in Tokyo, Japan, took up the study of "skin-furrows" after noticing finger marks on specimens of "prehistoric" pottery. A learned and industrious man, Dr. Faulds not only recognized the importance of fingerprints as a means of identification, but devised a method of classification as well. In 1880, Faulds forwarded an explanation of his classification system and a sample of the forms he had designed for recording inked impressions, to Sir Charles Darwin.

Darwin, in advanced age and ill health, informed Dr. Faulds that he could be of no assistance to him, but promised to pass the materials on to his cousin, Francis Galton. Also in 1880, Dr. Henry Faulds published an article in the Scientific Journal, "Nature" (nature). He discussed fingerprints as a means of personal identification, and the use of printers ink as a method for obtaining such fingerprints. He is also credited with the first fingerprint identification of a greasy fingerprint left on an alcohol bottle. 1882 - Thompson In 1882, Gilbert Thompson of the U.S. Geological Survey in New Mexico, used his own thumb print on a document to help prevent forgery. This is the first known use of fingerprints in the United States. Click the image below to see a larger image of an 1882 receipt issued by Gilbert Thompson to "Lying Bob" in the amount of 75 dollars. 1882 - Bertillon Alphonse Bertillon, a clerk in the Prefecture of Police of at Paris, France, devised a system of classification, known as anthropometry or the Bertillon System, using measurements of parts of the body.

Bertillon's system included measurements such as head length, head width, length of the middle finger, length of the left foot; and length of the forearm from the elbow to the tip of the middle finger. In 1888 Bertillon was made Chief of the newly created Department of Judicial Identity where he used anthropometry as the primary means of identification. He later introduced Fingerprints, but relegated them to a secondary role in the category of special marks. 1883 - Mark Twain (Samuel L. Clemens) In Mark Twain's book, "Life on the Mississippi", a murderer was identified by the use of fingerprint identification. In a later book, "Pudd'n Head Wilson", there was a dramatic court trial including fingerprint identification. A movie was made from this book in 1916 and a made-for-TV movie in 1984. 1888 - Galton Sir Francis Galton, British anthropologist and a cousin of Charles Darwin, began his observations of fingerprints as a means of identification in the 1880's. 1891 - Vucetich Juan Vucetich, an Argentine Police Official, began the first fingerprint files based on Galton pattern types.

At first, Vucetich included the Bertillon System with the files. Right Thumb Impression and Signature of Juan Vucetich 1892 - Alvarez & Galton At Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1892, Inspector Eduardo Alvarez made the first criminal fingerprint identification. He was able to identify Francisca Rojas, a woman who murdered her two sons and cut her own throat in an attempt to place blame on another. Her bloody print was left on a door post, proving her identity as the murderer. Alvarez was trained by Juan Vucetich. Francisca Rojas' Inked Fingerprints Sir Francis Galton published his book, "Finger Prints" in 1892, establishing the individuality and permanence of fingerprints. The book included the first published classification system for fingerprints. In 1893, Galton published the book "Decipherment of Blurred Finger Prints," and 1895 the book "Fingerprint Directories." Galton's primary interest in fingerprints was as an aid in determining heredity and racial background.

While he soon discovered that fingerprints offered no firm clues to an individual's intelligence or genetic history, he was able to scientifically prove what Herschel and Faulds already suspected: that fingerprints do not change over the course of an individual's lifetime, and that no two fingerprints are exactly the same. According to his calculations, the odds of two individual fingerprints being the same were 1 in 64 billion. Galton identified the characteristics by which fingerprints can be identified. A few of these same characteristics (minutia) are basically still in use today, and are sometimes referred to as Galton Details. 1897 - Haque & Bose On 12 June 1897, the Council of the Governor General of India approved a committee report that fingerprints should be used for classification of criminal records. Later that year, the Calcutta (now Kolkata) Anthropometric Bureau became the world's first Fingerprint Bureau. Working in the Calcutta Anthropometric Bureau (before it became the Fingerprint Bureau) were Azizul Haque (shown above) and Hem Chandra Bose. Haque and Bose are the two Indian fingerprint experts credited with primary development of the Henry System of fingerprint classification (named for their supervisor, Edward Richard Henry).

The Henry classification system is still used in English-speaking countries (primarily as the manual filing system for accessing paper archive files that have not been scanned and computerized). 1900 - E.R. Henry The United Kingdom Home Secretary Office conducted an inquiry into "Identification of Criminals by Measurement and Fingerprints." Mr. Edward Richard Henry (later Sir ER Henry) appeared before the inquiry committee to explain the system published in his recent book "The Classification and Use of Fingerprints." The committee recommended adoption of fingerprinting as a replacement for the relatively inaccurate Bertillon system of anthropometric measurement, which only partially relied on fingerprints for identification. 1901 The Fingerprint Branch at New Scotland Yard ( Metropolitan Police ) was created in July 1901 using the Henry System of Fingerprint Classification. 1902 First systematic use of fingerprints in the U.S. by the New York Civil Service Commission for testing. Dr. Henry P. DeForrest pioneers U.S. fingerprinting. 1903 In 1903, the New York City Civil Service Commission, the New York State Prison System and the Leavenworth Penitentiary in Kansas began using fingerprinting.

In 1903, Will and William West's fingerprints were compared at Leavenworth Penitentiary after there were found to have the same Anthropometric measurements. 1904 The use of fingerprints began at the St. Louis Police Department. They were assisted by a Sergeant from Scotland Yard who had been on duty at the St. Louis World's Fair Exposition guarding the British Display. Sometime after the St. Louis World's Fair, the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) created America's first national fingerprint repository, called the National Bureau of Criminal Identification. 1905 U.S. Army begins using fingerprints. U.S. Department of Justice forms the Bureau of Criminal Identification in Washington, DC to provide a centralized reference collection of fingerprint cards. Two years later the U.S. Navy started, and was joined the next year by the Marine Corp. During the next 25 years more and more law enforcement agencies join in the use of fingerprints as a means of personal identification. Many of these agencies began sending copies of their fingerprint cards to the National Bureau of Criminal Identification, which was established by the International Association of Police Chiefs. 1907 U.S. Navy begins using fingerprints. U.S.

Department of Justice's Bureau of Criminal Identification moves to Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary where it is staffed at least partially by inmates. 1908 U.S. Marine Corps begins using fingerprints. 1910 In 1910, Frederick Brayley published the first American textbook on fingerprints, "Arrangement of Finger Prints, Identification, and Their Uses." 1915 Inspector Harry H. Caldwell of the Oakland, California Police Department's Bureau of Identification wrote numerous letters to "Criminal Identification Operators" in August 1915, requesting them to meet in Oakland for the purpose of forming an organization to further the aims of the identification profession. In October 1915, a group of twenty-two identification personnel met and initiated the "International Association for Criminal Identification" In 1918, the organization was renamed the International Association for Identification (IAI) due to the volume of non-criminal identification work performed by members. Sir Francis Galton's right index finger appears in the IAI logo. The IAI's official publication is the Journal of Forensic Identification.

The IAI's 100th annual educational conference was held in Sacramento, California, near the IAI's original roots. 1918 Edmond Locard wrote that if 12 points (Galton's Details) were the same between two fingerprints, it would suffice as a positive identification5. Locard's 12 points seems to have been based on an unscientific "improvement" over the eleven anthropometric measurements (arm length, height, etc.) used to "identify" criminals before the adoption of fingerprints. 1924 In 1924, an act of congress established the Identification Division of the FBI. The IACP's National Bureau of Criminal Identification and the US Justice Department's Bureau of Criminal Identification consolidated to form the nucleus of the FBI fingerprint files. During the decades since, the FBI's fingerprint national fingerprint support (both through Criminal Justice Information Services and the FBI Laboratory) has been indispensable in supporting American law enforcement.

1940s By the end of World War II, most American fingerprints experts agreed there was no scientific basis for a minimum number of corresponding minutiae to determine an "identification" and the twelve point rule was dropped from the FBI publication, "The Science of Fingerprints." 1946 By 1946, the FBI had processed 100 million fingerprint cards in manually maintained files; and by 1971, 200 million cards. With the introduction of automated fingerprint identification system (AFIS) technology, the files were later split into computerized criminal files and manually maintained civil files. Many of the manual files were duplicates though, the records actually represented somewhere in the neighborhood of 25 to 30 million criminals, and an unknown number (tens of millions) of individuals represented in the civil files. 1973 The International Association for Identification Standardization Committee authored a resolution stating that each identification is unique and no valid basis exists to require a minimum number of matching points in two friction ridge impressions to establish a positive identification. The resolution was approved by members at the 1973 annual conference.

1974 The Fingerprint Society In 1974, four employees of the Hertfordshire (United Kingdom) Fingerprint Bureau contacted fingerprint experts throughout the UK and began organization of that country's first professional fingerprint organization, the National Society of Fingerprint Officers. The organization initially consisted of only UK experts, but quickly expanded to international scope and was renamed The Fingerprint Society in 1977. The initials F.F.S. behind a fingerprint expert's name indicates they are recognized as a Fellow of the Fingerprint Society. The Society hosts annual educational conferences with speakers and delegates attending from many countries. 1977 At New Orleans, Louisiana on 1 August 1977, delegates to the 62nd Annual Conference of the International Association for Identification (IAI) voted to establish the world's first certification program for fingerprint experts. Since 1977, the IAI's Latent Print Certification Board has proficiency tested thousands of applicants, and periodically proficiency tests all IAI Certified Latent Print Examiners (CLPEs).

Contrary to claims (since the 1990s) that fingerprint experts profess their body of practitioners never make erroneous identifications, the Latent Print Certification program proposed, adopted, and in-force since 1977, specifically recognizes such mistakes sometimes occur, and must be addressed by the Latent Print Certification Board. During the past three decades, CLPE status has become a prerequisite for journeyman fingerprint expert positions in many US state and federal government forensic laboratories. IAI CLPE status is considered by many identification professionals to be a measurement of excellence. 1995 At the International Symposium on Latent Fingerprint Detection and Identification, conducted by the Israeli National Police Agency, at Neurim, Israel, June, 1995, the Neurim Declaration was issued.

The declaration, (authored by Pierre Margot and an American fingerprint expert from the Army Crime Lab), states "No scientific basis exists for requiring that a pre-determined minimum number of friction ridge features must be resent in two impression in order to establish a positive identification." The declaration was unanimously approved by all present, and later, signed by 28 persons from the following 11 countries: Australia, Canada, France, Holland, Hungary, Isreal, New Zealand, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, and United States. 2012 INTERPOL's Automated Fingerprint Identification System repository exceeds 150,000 sets of fingerprints for important international criminal records from 190 member countries. Over 170 countries have 24 x 7 interface ability with INTERPOL expert fingerprint services . 2015 - The International Association for Identification celebrated it's 100th Anniversary 2016 - America's Largest Databases The largest AFIS repository in America is operated by the Department of Homeland Security's US Visit Program, containing over 120 million persons' fingerprints, many in the form of two-finger records.

The US Visit Program has been migrating from two flat (not rolled) fingerprints to ten flat fingerprints since 2007. "Fast capture" technology currently enables recording of ten simultaneous fingerprint impressions in as little as 15 seconds per person. The largest criminal fingerprint AFIS repository in America is the FBI's Next Generation Identification (NGI) in Clarksburg, WV. NGI has more than 60 million individual computerized fingerprint records (both criminal and civil applicant records). NGI is the FBI's most valuable service to American law enforcement, providing accurate and rapid fingerprint identification services. Recently, FBI civil fingerprint files in NGI (mainly federal employees post-May 2000) have become searchable by US law enforcement agencies. Many enlisted military service member fingerprint cards received after 1990, and most military-related fingerprint cards received after 19 May 2000, have been computerized and will be searchable. The FBI is continuing to expand their automated identification activities to include other biometrics such as palm, face, and iris. Face search capabilities in NGI are a reality for many US law enforcement agencies accessing NGI, and several are participating in iris pilot projects.

All US states and many large cities have their own AFIS databases, each with a subset of fingerprint records that is not stored in any other database. Many also store and search palmprints. Law enforcement fingerprint interface standards are important to enable sharing records and reciprocal searches to identify criminals. Interpol , the European Union's Prüm Treaty, the FBI's Next Generation Identification and other initiatives seek to improve cross-jurisdiction sharing (probing and sharing/pushing) of important finger and palm print data to identify criminals. 2016 - World's Largest Database The Unique Identification Authority of India is the world's largest fingerprint (and largest multi-modal biometric) system using fingerprint, face and iris biometric records. India's Unique Identification project is also known as Aadhaar, a word meaning "the foundation" in several Indian languages. Aadhaar is a voluntary program, with the goal of eventually providing reliable national ID documents to most of India's 1.2 billion residents.

With a biometric database many times larger than any other in the world, Aadhaar's ability to leverage automated fingerprint and iris modalities (and potentially automated face recognition) enables rapid and reliable automated searching and identification impossible to accomplish with fingerprint technology alone, especially when searching children and elderly residents' fingerprints. Since 2010, the Authority has issued more than 1.07 billion (more than 107 crore) Aadhaar numbers. _______________________________________________________________________________ 1 Some of the above wording is credited to the writing of Greg Moore, from his previous fingerprint history page at (no longer there). Also, David L. von Minden, Ph.D. helped correct typos his students kept cutting and pasting into their homework. 2 Interpol, " General Position on Fingerprint Evidence ," by the Interpol European Expert Group on Fingerprint Identification, at #val 3 Coulier, P.-J. Les vapeurs d'iode employees comme moyen de reconnaitre l'alteration des ecritures. In L'Annee scientiJique et industrielle; Figuier, L.

Ed.; Hachette, 1863; 8, pp 157-160 at (as of March 2010). 4 Margot, Pierre and Quinche, Nicolas, "Coulier, Paul-Jean (1824-1890): A Precursor in the History of Fingermark Detection and Their Potential Use for Identifying Their Source (1863)", Journal of forensic identification, 60 (2), March-April 2010, pp. 129-134, (published by the International Association for Identification). 5 As of 2016, the term positive identification (meaning absolute certainty) has been replaced in reports and testimony by most agencies/experts with more accurate terminology, including variations of wording such as the following: Examination and comparison of similarities and differences between the impressions resulted in the opinion there is a much greater support for the impressions originating from the same source than there is for them originating from different sources. There are sufficient features in agreement to conclude the two areas of friction ridge impressions originated from the same source.

Identification of an impression to one source is the decision that the likelihood the impression was made by another (different) source is so remote it is considered as a practical impossibility. A related 2014 paper titled "Individualization is dead, long live individualization! Reforms of reporting practices for fingerprint analysis in the United States" by Simon Cole, Professor at University of California, Irvine is linked here . 6 Herschel information from a Fingerprint Identification presentation by T. Dickerson Cook at the annual meeting of the Texas Division, International Association for Identification, at Midland, Texas on 9 August 1954 (documented in Identification News, April 1964, pages 5-10). Fingerprint Classification - Fingerprinting.com Fingerprinting Products Fingerprint Classification The fingerprinting movement was launched in earnest in the latter part of the second half of the 19th Century. There is evidence of hand printing and fingerprinting dating all the way back to the building of the pyramids, and there is reason to believe that the Chinese culture used fingerprints as signatures on official documents back in 3 B.C. However, it was not until 1858 when Sir William J.

Hershel, an English administrator in a province just outside of Calcutta, India, in an attempt to halt the rampant forgery in governmental dealings, obtained a print on Mr. Rajyadhar Konai, a local contractor. The fingerprinting worked out so well that Hershel continued the practice and, after a decade, had accumulated a file of fingerprints. Soon thereafter, simultaneous studies on fingerprinting were conducted. As the practice of fingerprinting acquired more credence, the files of fingerprints collected by Hershel, Dr. Henry Faulds (who took fingerprints of Japanese hospital patients), and others proved too unwieldy. Sir Francis Galton, an English anthropologist, established the first classification of fingerprints in 1888, so that retrieval could be possible in a reasonable period of time. He established the classification of fingerprints on the patterns of the fingerprints independent of an individual's personal information. The grouping of patterns into arches, loops and whorls was revolutionary and was the basis of the work furthered revised by Sir Edward Richard Henry.

In 1896, Henry, the Inspector-General of Police, Lower Province for the Government of India, under English domain, revised Galton's methodology of classification of fingerprints and their retrieval, and presented his system to the Government of India for use in the criminal system in order to keep track of offenders. At that time, a type of personal identification was utilized by Alphonse Bertillon, a police clerk in France, who devised a method based on body measurements specific to each individual. Henry concluded that this methodology, the anthropometrical method, was successful in determining personal identification only 40% of the time. By taking the classification patterns of Galton and adding a fourth one, composites, the fingerprints could be filed in bins according to groupings for easy retrieval, thus eliminating the necessity of matching the fingerprints against those in the entire database. The Henry System of Fingerprint Classification was put into use by the Government of India, and it proved so successful as a means of establishing criminal identification records that Scotland Yard adopted the methodology in 1901. Henry was appointed Chief Commissioner of the London Police Department, and the Henry Classification of Fingerprinting was accepted as common practice throughout England and its territorial holdings and in the United States.

Within the same decade as Sir Henry's advances in the use of fingerprinting in the tracking and identification of criminals, similar programs were launched in South America by Juan Vucetich, an Argentine Police Official, and Henry Roscher, a disciple of Dr. Henry Faulds, in Germany. Vucetich is credited with the first positive criminal identification as, in 1892, he was able to extract a set of prints off a door and thus identify a woman as the culprit in a double homicide. Vucetich, Roscher, and Henry all developed systems of fingerprint classification based on the different shapes and patterns in the ridges of fingers, as well as on the finger positions of these pattern types and by the number of ridges in each finger configuration. Henry's Classification of Fingerprinting system was adopted by the English speaking countries, while Vucetich's system was utilized in the Spanish speaking countries. Roscher's system was used in his homeland of Germany, and also in Japan.

These manual filing systems paved the way for the computerized classification systems that exist today, and these three gentlemen were the chief fingerprint frontiersmen who explored the heretofore virgin territory of fingerprint classification, and then refined it into the classifications that are basically still in use today. History of Fingerprints History of Fingerprints © 2015 - Crime Scene Forensics, LLC - All Rights Reserved Fingerprints have been used as a means of positively identifying people for many years. Here is a brief history of the science of fingerprints: 1880 - Dr. Henry Faulds, a Scottish doctor in Tokyo, Japan published an article in the scientific journal: “Nature”; in which he discussed fingerprints as a means of personal identification, and the use of printers ink as a method for obtaining such fingerprints. 1882 - Alphonse Bertillion, French anthropologist, devised method of body measurements to produce a formula used to classify individuals. Bertillion's formula involved taking the measurements of a persons body parts, and recording these measurements on a card. This method of classifying and identifying people became known as the Bertillion System.

1892 - Sir Francis Galton, a British Anthropologist and cousin to Charles Darwin, publishes the first book on fingerprints. In his book, Galton identifies the individuality and uniqueness of fingerprints. The unique characteristics of fingerprints, as identified by Galton, will officially become known as minutiae, however they are sometimes still referred to as "Galton’s Details". 1891 - Juan Vucetich, Argentine Police Official, Initiated the fingerprinting of criminals, (First case used was the Rojas Homicide in 1892, in which the print of a woman who murdered her two sons and cut her own throat in an attempt to place the blame on another person was found on a door post) 1896 - International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP), Establish National Bureau of Criminal Identification, for the exchange of arrest information. 1901 - Sir Edward Henry, an Inspector General of Police in Bengal, India, develops the first system of classifying fingerprints. This system of classifying fingerprints was first adopted as the official system in England, and eventually spread throughout the world.

1903 – The William West – Will West Case at a Federal Prison in Leavenworth, Kansas, changed the way that people were classified and identified. When a man named Will West entered the Leavenworth Prison System, in 1903, he was “booked” into the prison, as all other inmates. His face was photographed, and his Bertillion measurements were taken. Upon completion of this process, it was noted that another inmate, known as William West, who was already incarcerated at Leavenworth, had the same name, Bertillion measurements, and bore a striking resemblance to Will West. The incident called the reliability of Bertillion measurements into question , and it was decided The Fingerprint System - NY DCJS Statistics The Fingerprint System Increased experience with anthropometric identification quickly revealed to New York's Bertillon Indexers what other users of the system had already discovered: Bertillon's method of identification contained significant room for improvement.

Although 243 basic categories were plenty for an agency handling 5,000 to 10,000 records, when the 50,000 mark was reached and passed, New York's Bertillon Indexers found themselves searching through categories containing 200 or more cards. The time required to check for duplicate records increased from a few minutes to several hours. Another problem was the inaccuracy of the measurements themselves. This was due to the inexperience or incompetence of the examiners, as well as the criminals' refusal to wait until they attained full adulthood, and thus their most stable measurements, before they began committing crimes. By the turn of the century, supplementing Bertillon's original system with additional anthropometric subclassifications was common practice, and it was for the purpose of studying these enhancements that Chief Clerk Charles K. Baker was once again called upon to travel to Europe. Baker made this trip in the summer of 1902 with Dr. R. B. Lamb, Superintendent of Dannemora State Hospital. For three days, they studied under Bertillon at his "School for Detectives" in Paris.

Then, upon hearing that fingerprints had superseded the Bertillon method in Great Britain, they set out for England. The English had begun using fingerprints in July of 1858, when Sir William Herschel, Chief Magistrate of the Hooghly District in Jungipoor, India, reached his limit of frustration with the dishonesty of the natives. On a whim, and with no thought toward personal identification, Herschel had Rajyadhar Konai, a local businessman, impress his hand print on the back of a contract. The idea was merely ". . . to frighten [him] out of all thought of repudiating his signature." The native was suitably impressed, and Herschel made a habit of requiring palm prints -- and later, simply the prints of the right index and middle fingers -- on every contract made with the locals. Personal contact with the document, they believed, made the contract more binding than if they simply signed it. Thus, the first wide-scale, modern-day use of fingerprints was predicated, not upon scientific evidence, but upon superstitious beliefs. However, as his fingerprint collection grew, Herschel began to note that the inked impressions could prove or disprove identity.

While his experience with fingerprinting was admittedly limited, Sir Herschel's private conviction that each fingerprint was unique to the individual, as well as permanent throughout that individual's life, inspired him to expand their use. During the 1870's, Dr. Henry Faulds, the British Surgeon-Superintendent of Tsukiji Hospital in Tokyo, Japan, took up the study of "skin-furrows" after noticing finger marks on specimens of "prehistoric" pottery. A learned and industrious man, Dr. Faulds not only recognized the importance of fingerprints as a means of identification, but devised a method of classification as well. In 1880, Faulds forwarded an explanation of his classification system and a sample of the forms he had designed for recording inked impressions to Sir Charles Darwin. Darwin, in advanced age and ill health, informed Dr. Faulds that he could be of no assistance to him, but promised to pass the materials on to his cousin, Francis Galton. Sir Galton was occupied by other scientific projects at the time and displayed little interest in the study of fingerprints until 1888, when he was asked to present a lecture on personal identification to the Royal Institute.

As the anthropometric system was the only known means of identification, Bertillonage was to be the principal object of the lecture. However, "wishing to treat the subject generally, and having a vague knowledge of the value sometimes assigned to finger marks," Galton began to make inquiries concerning the use of fingerprints. A letter to the scientific journal Nature requesting information on the subject was forwarded to Sir Herschel, who placed his collection of fingerprint data at the scientist's disposal. Galton's primary interest in fingerprints was as an aid in determining heredity and racial background. While he soon discovered that fingerprints offered no firm clues to an individual's intelligence or genetic history, he was able to prove scientifically what Herschel and Faulds already suspected: that fingerprints do not change over the course of an individual's lifetime, and no two fingerprints are exactly the same. According to his calculations, the odds of two individual fingerprints being the same were 1 in 64 billion. Galton designed a form for recording inked fingerprint impressions and defined three main pattern types: loops, those patterns tend to curve back upon themselves; whorls, those patterns tend to be circular; and arches, those patterns which form no loops or circles.

Each of the ten fingers, depending on its pattern type, was labeled with an L, W, or A. The letters representing the patterns in the right hand's index, middle and ring fingers were grouped together, followed by the letters representing the patterns in the corresponding fingers of the left hand. These letters were then followed by the letters representing the patterns in the right thumb and little finger and the left thumb and little finger. A person with the fingerprint patterns Loop, Loop, Arch, Whorl, Loop in the right hand and Whorl, Loop, Whorl, Loop, Loop in the left hand would, under this system, have a classification of LAWLWLLLWL. This series of letters was recorded on the fingerprint form and the forms were filed alphabetically by classification. Galton's abecedarian filing system was remarkably similar to the one Dr. Faulds had devised and, if Faulds is to be believed, the form Galton designed to record impressions on was a blatant copy of Faulds' form forwarded to Galton from Darwin in 1880. In 1894, after rejecting Dr.

Faulds' suggestion to use fingerprints, Scotland Yard adopted Galton's rudimentary fingerprint system as an auxiliary to their Bertillon files. At this time, in British India, Edward Henry, the new administrator of the Bengal District, was experiencing the same problems with the local population as Sir Herschel had. Henry was convinced that a system of identification based solely on fingerprints was possible. A correspondence, and subsequent friendship, began between Henry and Galton; and in 1894, when he returned to England on leave, Henry visited Galton at his laboratory. After returning to India, Henry had fingerprints and Bertillon measurements taken of all prisoners under his jurisdiction. In a report dated June 24, 1896, Henry outlined the advantages of a fingerprint-based system over Bertillonage, but admitted that such a system had not yet been fully developed. A major obstacle was the formulation of a simple and logical method of dividing fingerprint records into a large number of primary groupings. The solution, according to Henry, came to him in a flash of inspiration during a train journey across India. Lacking paper and fearing the vision might fade from his mind and become lost forever, he scribbled notes on the cuffs of his shirt sleeves.

A less dramatic but more plausible version of this breakthrough maintains that Sir Henry's Indian assistant, Khan Bahadur Azizul Haque, devised the mathematical formula, then found himself frustrated by Henry's lack of comprehension when he attempted to explain it to him. Henry's classification system assigned a value to each individual finger. Fingers number 1 and 2, being the right thumb and right index, held a value of 16. Fingers number 3 and 4, the right middle and ring, held a value of 8, and so on. Whenever a whorl pattern appeared in a finger, the corresponding value was added to the base value of 1. Henry used a fraction-type primary classification which took the accrued values of the even numbered fingers as the numerator and the accrued value of the odd numbered fingers as the denominator. Therefore, a person with the fingerprint patterns Loop, Loop, Arch, Whorl, Loop in the right hand and Whorl, Loop, Whorl, Loop, Loop in the left hand would have a primary fingerprint classification of 15 over 1. A person with no whorl patterns would have a primary classification of 1 over 1.

This classification system, allowing for 1,024 primary groupings, was instituted in Bengal, India, in early 1897. The success of Henry's experiment encouraged him to make a formal request to the Government of India for the appointment of an independent committee to review his new system and compare it with Bertillonage. The committee met in March of 1897 and submitted a report to the Government of India which concluded that the fingerprint method was far superior to the Bertillon System. On June 12, 1897, the Governor General signed a resolution directing that identification of criminals by fingerprint impressions be adopted in British India. Henry's Fingerprint Classification System was so successful in India that a second committee was assembled to review Scotland Yard's identification practices. This committee, in 1900, recommended the total abandonment of Bertillon's anthropometric system in favor of the new Henry System. In May of 1901, Henry was appointed Assistant Commissioner of the Criminal Investigation Department. He was transferred to England and began setting up Scotland Yard's Central Fingerprint Bureau and instructing selected officers in the art of fingerprint classification. By the time Mr. Baker and Dr.

Lamb visited London in 1902, Henry's fingerprint file was in full operation. They were impressed by this new system and, prior to returning to America, purchased a copy of Henry's book, Classification and Uses of Fingerprints, as well as Finger Prints by Sir Francis Galton. Shortly after his return, Mr. Baker was interviewed by Harry Beardsley for an article which appeared in the April 16, 1903 edition of Leslie's Weekly. In the article, Mr. Baker extolled the wonders of the Bertillon Method and made little mention of fingerprints. Superintendent Collins, in his annual report for 1903, noted the introduction of a Fingerprint Department "for the purpose of experiment and test," but predicted that the Bertillon System would continue to be the approved method of identification in the United States. U.S. Marshals Service for Students, Fingerprint History U.S. Marshals Service for Students Accidental What Type of Fingerprints do you have? Fingerprint History: Prehistoric picture writing of a hand with ridge patterns was discovered in Nova Scotia. In ancient Babylon, fingerprints were used on clay tablets for business transactions. In ancient China, thumb prints were found on clay seals.

In 14th century Persia, various official government papers had fingerprints (impressions), and one government official, a doctor, observed that no two fingerprints were exactly alike. Marcello Malpighi - 1686 In 1686, Marcello Malpighi, a professor of anatomy at the University of Bologna, noted in his treatise; ridges, spirals and loops in fingerprints. He made no mention of their value as a tool for individual identification. A layer of skin was named after him; "Malpighi" layer, which is approximately 1.8mm thick. John Evangelist Purkinji - 1823 In 1823, John Evangelist Purkinji, a professor of anatomy at the University of Breslau, published his thesis discussing 9 fingerprint patterns, but he too made no mention of the value of fingerprints for personal identification. Sir William Hershel - 1856 The English first began using fingerprints in July of 1858, when Sir William Herschel, Chief Magistrate of the Hooghly district in Jungipoor, India, first used fingerprints on native contracts.

On a whim, and with no thought toward personal identification, Herschel had Rajyadhar Konai, a local businessman, impress his hand print on the back of a contract. The idea was merely ". . . to frighten [him] out of all thought of repudiating his signature." The native was suitably impressed, and Herschel made a habit of requiring palm prints--and later, simply the prints of the right Index and Middle fingers--on every contract made with the locals. Personal contact with the document, they believed, made the contract more binding than if they simply signed it. Thus, the first wide-scale, modern-day use of fingerprints was predicated, not upon scientific evidence, but upon superstitious beliefs. As his fingerprint collection grew, however, Herschel began to note that the inked impressions could, indeed, prove or disprove identity. While his experience with fingerprinting was admittedly limited, Sir Herschel's private conviction that all fingerprints were unique to the individual, as well as permanent throughout that individual's life, inspired him to expand their use. Dr. Henry Faulds - 1880 During the 1870's, Dr.

Henry Faulds, the British Surgeon-Superintendent of Tsukiji Hospital in Tokyo, Japan, took up the study of "skin-furrows" after noticing finger marks on specimens of "prehistoric" pottery. A learned and industrious man, Dr. Faulds not only recognized the importance of fingerprints as a means of identification, but devised a method of classification as well. In 1880, Faulds forwarded an explanation of his classification system and a sample of the forms he had designed for recording inked impressions, to Sir Charles Darwin. Darwin, in advanced age and ill health, informed Dr. Faulds that he could be of no assistance to him, but promised to pass the materials on to his cousin, Francis Galton. Also in 1880, Dr. Faulds published an article in the Scientific Journal, "Nautre" (nature). He discussed fingerprints as a means of personal identification, and the use of printers ink as a method for obtaining such fingerprints. He is also credited with the first fingerprint identification of a greasy fingerprint left on an alcohol bottle. Gilbert Thompson - 1882 In 1882, Gilbert Thompson of the U.S.

Geological Survey in New Mexico, used his own fingerprints on a document to prevent forgery. This is the first known use of fingerprints in the United States. Mark Twain (Samuel L. Clemens) - 1883 In Mark Twain's book, "Life on the Mississippi", a murderer was identified by the use of fingerprint identification. In a later book by Mark Twain, "Pudd'n Head Wilson", there was a dramatic court trial on fingerprint identification. A more recent movie was made from this book. Sir Francis Galton - 1888 Sir Francis Galton, a British anthropologist and a cousin of Charles Darwin, began his observations of fingerprints as a means of identification in the 1880's. In 1892, he published his book, "Fingerprints", establishing the individuality and permanence of fingerprints. The book included the first classification system for fingerprints. Galton's primary interest in fingerprints was as an aid in determining heredity and racial background.

While he soon discovered that fingerprints offered no firm clues to an individual's intelligence or genetic history, he was able to scientifically prove what Herschel and Faulds already suspected: that fingerprints do not change over the course of an individual's lifetime, and that no two fingerprints are exactly the same. According to his calculations, the odds of two individual fingerprints being the same were 1 in 64 billion. Galton identified the characteristics by which fingerprints can be identified. These same characteristics (minutia) are basically still in use today, and are often referred to as Galton's Details. Juan Vucetich In 1891, Juan Vucetich, an Argentine Police Official, began the first fingerprint files based on Galton pattern types. At first, Vucetich included the Bertillon System with the files. (see Bertillon below) In 1892, Juan Vucetich made the first criminal fingerprint identification. He was able to identify a woman by the name of Rojas, who had murdered her two sons, and cut her own throat in an attempt to place blame on another. Her bloody print was left on a door post, proving her identity as the murderer.

1901 Introduction of fingerprints for criminal identification in England and Wales, using Galton's observations and revised by Sir Edward Richard Henry. Thus began the Henry Classification System, used even today in all English speaking countries. 1902 First systematic use of fingerprints in the U.S. by the New York Civil Service Commission for testing. Dr. Henry P. DeForrest pioneers U.S. fingerprinting. 1903 The New York State Prison system began the first systematic use of fingerprints in U.S. for criminals. 1904 The use of fingerprints began in Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary in Kansas, and the St. Louis Police Department. They were assisted by a Sergeant from Scotland Yard who had been on duty at the St. Louis Exposition guarding the British Display. 1905 1905 saw the use of fingerprints for the U.S. Army. Two years later the U.S. Navy started, and was joined the next year by the Marine Corp. During the next 25 years more and more law enforcement agencies join in the use of fingerprints as a means of personal identification.

Many of these agencies began sending copies of their fingerprint cards to the National Bureau of Criminal Identification, which was established by the International Association of Police Chiefs. 1918 It was in 1918 when Edmond Locard wrote that if 12 points (Galton's Details) were the same between two fingerprints, it would suffice as a positive identification. This is where the often quoted (12 points) originated. Be aware though, there is "NO" required number of points necessary for an identification. Some countries have set their own standards which do include a minimum number of points, but not in the United States. 1924 In 1924, an act of congress established the Identification Division of the F.B.I.. The National Bureau and Leavenworth consolidated to form the nucleus of the F.B.I. fingerprint files. 1946 By 1946, the F.B.I. had processed 100 million fingerprint cards in manually maintained files; and by 1971, 200 million cards. With the introduction of AFIS technology, the files were split into computerized criminal files and manually maintained civil files.

Many of the manual files were duplicates though, the records actually represented somewhere in the neighborhood of 25 to 30 million criminals, and an unknown number of individuals in the civil files. 1999 By 1999, the FBI had planned to stop using paper fingerprint cards (at least for the newly arriving civil fingerprints) inside their new Integrated AFIS (IAFIS) site at Clarksburg, WV. IAFIS will initially have individual computerized fingerprint records for approximately 33 million criminals. Old paper fingerprint cards for the civil files are still manually maintained in a warehouse facility (rented shopping center space) in Fairmont, WV. Since the Gulf War, most military fingerprint enlistment cards received have been filed only alphabetically by name. The FBI hopes to someday classify and file these cards so they can be of value for unknown casualty (or amnesiac) identification (when no passenger/victim list from a flight, etc., is known). 2002 Currently now in 2002, paper fingerprint cards are still in use and being processed for all identification purposes. Why Fingerprint Identification? Fingerprints offer an infallible means of personal identification.

That is the essential explanation for their having supplanted other methods of establishing the identities of criminals reluctant to admit previous arrests. Other personal characteristics change - fingerprints do not. In earlier civilizations, branding and even maiming were used to mark the criminal for what he was. The thief was deprived of the hand which committed the thievery. The Romans employed the tattoo needle to identify and prevent desertion of mercenary soldiers. More recently, law enforcement officers with extraordinary visual memories, so-called "camera eyes," identified old offenders by sight. Photography lessened the burden on memory but was not the answer to the criminal identification problem. Personal appearances change. Around 1870 a French anthropologist devised a system to measure and record the dimensions of certain bony parts of the body. These measurements were reduced to a formula which, theoretically, would apply only to one person and would not change during his/her adult life. This Bertillon System, named after its inventor, Alphonse Bertillon, was generally accepted for thirty years. But it never recovered from the events of 1903, when a man named Will West was sentenced to the U.S. Penitentiary at Leavenworth, Kansas.

You see, there was already a prisoner at the penitentiary at the time, whose Bertillon measurements were nearly exact, and his name was William West. Upon an investigation, there were indeed two men. They looked exactly alike, but were allegedly not related. Their names were Will and William West, respectively. Their Bertillon measurements were close enough to identify them as the same person. However, a fingerprint comparison quickly and correctly identified them as two different people. The West men were apparently identical twin brothers per indications in later discovered prison records citing correspondence from the same immediate family relatives. Learn Fingerprints The AIST curriculum using the one workbook and two textbooks concerning the science of fingerprints that has been prepared by professionals. The fingerprint course will teach students about the historical background of the science of fingerprints. In the next step, the course acquaints with sufficient knowledge necessary to identity, understand, and implement the eight basic fingerprint patterns according to the Henry System of Fingerprint Classification, as prepared by the FBI. Sir Edward Henry was an Assistant Commissioner of Police at Scotland Yard in 1901 that first developed the eight basic fingerprint patterns classification system that is still being used by the FBI, Scotland Yard, and law enforcement agencies throughout the world.

At AIST students will learn to classify fingerprints according to the Henry System. A significant portion of the study’s concentration will be focused on the orientation of prints; detailed instructions and practical applications of fingerprint patterns, ridge counting, whorl tracing, and interpretation; the study and evaluation of loops, whorls, and arch pattern characteristics, and comparison of prints. The AIST fingerprint course is designed to acquaint students with sufficient knowledge in order to identify, understand, and implement the Henry System of the Fingerprint Classification Formula (FPC) that is currently used on all law enforcement fingerprint cards, for classification. A significant portion of the course will be spent on detailed instructions and practical applications of the classification formula, which comprises the following six divisions: Key, Mayor, Primary, Secondary, Sub-secondary, and Final. Students will learn to classify and take ink prints on fingerprint cards according to the proper FPC formula. Students will learn how to physically obtain fingerprints for classification and / or comparison. Students will also learn, understand, and know how to conduct ACE-V (An acronym for Analyze, Comparison, Evaluation, and Verification) methodology, which is the most current method used for identification or exclusion of an individual fingerprint.

Students will learn how to present ACE-V examinations as evidence in a court of law. This portion of the AIST fingerprint course will provide students with sufficient knowledge in order to identify, understand, and implement the codes used by the National Crime Information Center (NCIC), which is a computerized information system established to service all law enforcement agencies, including local, state, and federal governments. Understanding the NCIC is crucial because it is a widely used system that was developed to meet the needs of police, as well as those of prosecutors, courts, and correctional institutions for prompt, up-to-date information concerning an individual’s past criminal history. As part of AIST’s comprehensive course, all students will learn to classify fingerprints according to the proper NCIC codes. Upon completion of AIST Fingerprint Course students will complete an examination .

Question: Who devised a practical system for classifying fingerprints?
Answer: Sir Edward Henry