Full Name: 

 Albert Sherman Osborn

Known for  Pioneer and author in the field of Questioned Document Examination.
Expert witness in many famous trials including People v. Molineux (168 N.Y. 264, 1899)
and State v. Hauptmann (115 N.J.L. 412, 1935). Founding president of the ASQDE
(American Society of Questioned Document Examiners)
Notable work  Various seminal textbooks in the area of QDE
Died  1946, Montclair, New Jersey, United States
Books  Questioned documents: A study of questioned documents

Albert Sherman Osborn is considered the father of the science of questioned document
examination in North America.

His seminal book Questioned Documents was first published in 1910 and later heavily
revised as a second edition in 1929. Other publications, including The Problem of
Proof (1922), The Mind of the Juror (1937) and Questioned Document Problems (1944),
were widely acclaimed by both the legal profession and by public and private laboratories
concerned with matters involving questioned documents.
 Albert D. Osborn was the third President of the American Society of Questioned Document
Examiners.
Mr. Osborn was born on March 2, 1896 and grew up in Upper Montclair, New Jersey.  He was
a graduate of Dartmouth University.  Mr. Osborn was the son of the founding president of the
ASQDE, Albert S. Osborn.  After joining his father's practice, he began attending the meetings
that eventually led to the formation of the ASQDE.  In 1942, Mr. Osborn was one of the 15
men who founded the Society.  He was associated with his father in private practice until his
father's death in 1946.  A. D. Osborn's sons, Paul Osborn and Russell Osborn, both became
examiners of questioned documents, as did his grandson John P. Osborn.
Among Mr. Osborn's many high profile cases, he was one of eight document examiners who
testified for the prosecution in the case against Bruno Hauptmann in the kidnapping/murder
of the Lindbergh baby.
Mr. Osborn was coauthor of the book Questioned Document Problems with his father.  He
was also the author of many professional papers.

BJ Vreeland Haring and J. Howard Haring

In the book, “The Law of Disputed and Forged Documents”, J. Newton Baker states that, “Forgery was practiced
from the earliest times in every country where writing was the medium of communication”.

 
 
James V. P. "Jim" Conway was the 20th president of the American Society of Questioned Document
Examiners.
Mr. Conway attended St. Vincent’s College in Latrobe, Pennsylvania from 1931 to 1934 where his studies
included German and Greek script.  During the period 1935 to 1936 he studied penmanship under the
direction of a master penman at Cambria-Rowe Business College in Greensburg, PA.
From 1936 to 1938, he received training in the field of questioned document examination under the
direction of the Chief Postal Inspector, the National Bureau of Standards and other government
laboratories.  During his employ with the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, Mr. Conway served as an
Examiner of Questioned Documents, a Postal Inspector-Document Analyst, Crime Laboratory Director,
Executive Assistant to the Postmaster General, Senior Assistant Postmaster General, Deputy Postmaster
General and occupied a position on the agency’s Board of Governors.  In 1980, he received the Benjamin
Franklin Award, the highest award presented by the U.S. Postal Service.
Beginning in 1940, Mr. Conway qualified as an expert witness in federal, state, military, and territorial
courts, grand juries and other judicial matters on over 600 occasions, testifying in virtually every aspect
of forensic document examination.

Dr. Wilson R. Harrison

Description
Things, they say, are seldom what they seem. This ' statement is particularly true of documents which, from the literary
forgeries of Ossian to the typewriter controversy of the Hiss case, have often been attacked and exposed as false. There
have been occasions when history has been changed by documents subsequently proved forgeries, and a scrap of paper
can send a man to the gallows. The examination of suspect documents is therefore a tremendously important task, and the
establishment of authenticity is a difficult and complicated process, embodying the most recent developments in microscopy,
photography and micro-chemical analysis.
Dr. Harrison has had over twenty years' experience and is the Director of the Home Office Forensic Science Laboratory
responsible for the examination of documents for the police forces of England and Wales, and for many government
departments. He has written a book which, lavishly illustrated, provides a wealth of information on the deciphering of
erasures, the chemical analysis of ink, the identification of finger-prints, the discovering of invisible writing, the establishment
of the age of ball-point pen documents, the tracing of writing, the authorship of type written matter and many similar subjects.
Now that this information is available, anyone concerned with documents — whether as the subject of criminal investigation,
evidence in legal proceedings, or in some other way — must refer to this book. It may be disastrous not to.
.............................................................................................................................
Contents
1.    Introduction
2.    Materials from which documents are made
3.    The preliminary examination
4.    The equipment of a document laboratory
5.    Examination in the laboratory
6.    Photography of documents
7.    Dating Problems 
8.    Typescript 
9.    Handwriting
10.  Disguise
11.  Forged signatures
12.  The preliminary phase of a document examination
13.  The care, preservation and cleaning of documents
14.  Anonymous letters
15.  A document case at court