http://www.di-srv.unisa.it/~ads/corso-security/www/CORSO-9900/biometria/HistoryF.

htm

http://www.crimescene-forensics.com/History_of_Fingerprints.html

https://onin.com/fp/fphistory.html

https://www.findlaw.com/criminal/criminal-procedure/fingerprints-the-first-id.html#:~:text=The%20pioneer%20in%20fi
%20hereditary%20traits.

http://www.forensicsciencesimplified.org/prints/principles.html

There are records of fingerprints being taken many centuries ago, although they weren't
nearly as sophisticated as they are today. The ancient Babylonians pressed the tips of
their fingertips into clay to record business transactions. The Chinese used ink-on-paper
finger impressions for business and to help identify their children.

However, fingerprints weren't used as a method for identifying criminals until the 19th
century.

1858 - Sir William Herschel, British Administrator in District in India, requires fingerprint and signatures
on civil contracts

Fingerprints have been used as a means of positively identifying people for many years. Here is a brief
history of the
science of fingerprints:

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.
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. This system of classifying fingerprints was
first adopted as the official system in England, and eventually spread throughout

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

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 that a
more positive means of identification was necessary. As the Bertillion System began to decline, the use
of fingerprints in identifying and classifying individuals began to rise. After 1903, many prison systems
began to use fingerprints as the primary means of identification.

1905 – U.S. Military adopts the use of fingerprints – soon thereafter, police agencies began to adopt the
use of
fingerprints

1908 – The first official fingerprint card was developed   

1911 - Fingerprints are first accepted by U.S. courts as a reliable means of Identification.
     - Dec. 21, 1911, The Illinois State Supreme Court upheld the admissibility of fingerprint evidence
concluding that
      fingerprints are a reliable form of identification.

 Thomas Jennings was the first person to be convicted of murder in the United States based on
fingerprint evidence.
Jennings appealed his conviction to the Illinois Supreme Court on the basis of a questionable
new scientific
technique. The Illinois Supreme Court cited the historical research and use of fingerprints as a
means of reliable
identification in upholding the conviction, and thus establishing the use of fingerprints as a
reliable means of
identification.
  Jennings was executed in 1912.

1917 - First Palm print identification is made in Nevada. The bloody palm print, found on a letter left at
the scene of a
stage coach robbery and murder of its driver, was identified to Ben Kuhl. (State v. Kuhl 42 Nev. 195 175
PAC 190 (1918)

1924 – Formation of ID Division of FBI

1980 – First computer data base of fingerprints was developed, which came to be known as the
Automated Fingerprint
Identification System, (AFIS).  In the present day, there nearly 70 million cards, or nearly 700 million
individual fingerprints entered in AFIS

https://onin.com/fp/fphistory.html

https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/nij/225321.pdf

The History of Fingerprints

Pre-historic 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 treaties;
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 1923, 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 State 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.

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.

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.
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.

In 1999, the FBI plans 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).

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.

* Much of the wording here is from Greg Moore's excellent fingerprint history page at
http://www.brawleyonline.com/consult/history.htm
  

LATENT PRINT EXAMINATION