The History of Fingerprints

Ancient artifacts with carvings similar to friction ridge skin have

been discovered in many places throughout the world.
• Nova Scotia- where picture writing of a hand with ridge patterns
was discovered in.
• In ancient Babylon, fingerprints were used on clay tablets for
business transactions.
3rd Century B.C.- In China, Chinese used fingerprints before the birth
of Christianity. The use of fingerprint was symbolic and as a part of a
“ritual” rather for actual identification.

Chinese-were the first culture known to have used friction ridge

impression as a means of identification.

Prehistoric Marks- Archaeologist and others have discovered finger

impression on prehistoric pottery which have been definitely identified
as prints from human hands
1684-Dr. Nehemiah Grew published a report read before the Royal Society
of London, England describing the ridges and pores of the hands and feet.

1685- Godard Bidloo published another thesis “Anatomia Humanis

Corporis” which emphasized the appearance and arrangement of the ridges
of the thumb due to their importance.

1686- Marcelo Malphigi published a book on ridges and pores entitled “De
Externo Tactus Organo” describing the ridges found on the palmar surface
of the hand which course is diverse as the mouth of the sweat glands.
- Known as the grandfather of fingerprint identification
Discovered the 2 layers of the skin
a. Dermis ( inner layer)
b. Epidermis ( outer layer)
1788- JCA Mayer stated in his book (Anatomists Kupfertafeln Nebst
Dazu Gehirogen) “Although the arrangement of the skin ridges is
never duplicated in two persons, nevertheless, the similarities are
closer among some individuals”. He thus, become the first to state that
prints of two different persons are never alike.

1823-Proffessor Johannes E Purkinje’s work contributed an

important landmark in the history of fingerprint science. It was on his
book “Commenlation de Examine Physiologo Organi Visus et
Systematis Cutanel (A Commentary of Physiological Examination
of the Organs of Vision and the Cutaneous System) that brought
about a systematic classification of the varieties of fingerprint patterns.
He got his work published officially on December 22, 1823 in Breslau,
Germany.
1856- Herman J. Welker took the prints of his own right palm. In 1897, he
printed the same palm to prove that prints do not change.

Dr. Edmond Locard- he was responsible for standardizing the use of Galton
points in fingerprint identification.
- He believed that if 12 points of comparison could be matched between prints.

Locard’s Exchange Principle- summarizes the two way transfer of trace

evidence as:

-When A comes into contact with B, something from A is transferred to B

and vice versa.
-Every contact leaves a trace.’
 1858 - Sir William Herschel,
British Administrator in District
in India, requires fingerprint and
signatures on civil contracts
and made a variety of
experiments and soon realized
that a person's fingerprints do
not change over time!.
- In India, he printed the palms of
natives on the document as a
safeguard against repudiation
of signatures in order to avoid
impersonation among the
laborers.
William Herschel- Chief
Magistrate of the Hooghly
District in Jungipoor, India
who began using fingerprints
on native contracts

- He also credited with starting

the first study of the
persistence ( Pagpuprsige) of
friction ridge skin over time

- He recorded his right hand

print in 1856 and 1887
publishing a study in 1898
 1880 - 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 Japan, he wrote on the subject of

fingerprints about the use of a
thin film of printers ink. He
advocated their use in the
detection of crime.
1882 - Alphonse Bertillion, a French
anthropologist who devised the first
scientific system of personal
identification. He began to develop
science of anthropometry, a scientific
procedure of taking series of body
measurements as a means of
distinguishing one individual from
another. This method of classifying
and identifying people became known
as the Bertillion System. His system
was considered the most accurate
method of personal identification, thus,
he earned the distinction of being
known as the Father of Criminal
Investigation
1888 - Sir Francis Galton discovered the families of
fingerprint pattern---Arch, Loop and Whorl. He
revealed that the ridge patterns remain constant
throughout the life of the individual and that, these
patterns are useful in devising a method of
classification.
1892- Juan Vucetich was Argentine
Chief of Police Officer, the first to
actually use his system to convict
a criminal. Created the first
method of recording “The
Fingerprints of Individuals on File”
- In that same year, there was an
incident involving Francisca
Rojas with her two sons found
in a house with neck injuries or
throats cut
1901 - Sir Edward Richard 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.
- Emerged as the Father of Fingerprints at
least the first man to successfully apply
fingerprints for 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.
1924 – Formation of Identification 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.
In the Philippines, fingerprinting started in 1900s through
the Americans. Mr. Jones taught the science of
fingerprinting in the Philippine Constabulary.
Capt. Thomas Dugan of the New York Police
Department and Flaviano C. Guerrero, a Filipino member
of the FBI helped to organize the fingerprinting in the NBI.
Augustin Patricio the first Filipino authority in
fingerprinting and who topped the first examination on
fingerprints given by Captain Thomas Dugon of the New
York Police Department
 In 1910, the Bureau of Corrections through Mr.
Generoso La Torre, also adopted fingerprint system
for identification of inmates. He learned the system
from Lt. George M. Wolfe, the first director of the
bureau of prisons from 1909 to 1910.

Generoso Reyes became the first Filipino fingerprint

technician employed in the Philippine Constabulary,
while Isabela Bernales was the first Filipina fingerprint
technician.
The earliest case using fingerprint evidence to
convict the suspect was People of the
Philippine Islands vs. Marciano Diokno.
Medina (G.R. No. L-38434, December 23, 1933).

Robbery incident amounting to 300 plus pesos

The establishment of crime laboratory system in the
Philippines was created at the end of the Second
World War. On May 19, 1945 it started as a section of
G-2 Division of Military Police Command, then known as
the Fingerprint Record Section of the Philippine
Constabulary.
In 1946, Lt. Asa N. Darby facilitated the establishment of
complete fingerprint files in the Division of Investigation and
in the year that follows, it saw its reorganization into
Bureau of Investigation by virtue of the RA 157. It was
finally renamed as the National Bureau of Investigation
when the law was amended by Executive Order No. 94
issued on October 4, 1947.
Plaridel College (now known as Philippine
College of Criminology) is the first
recognized school in the Philippines to offer
Fingerprint Identification as part of its
academic curricula in 1950.

In 1991 at the birth of Republic Act 6975, the

Crime Laboratory service was activated as a
support unit of the new Philippine National
Police under the Department of Interior and
Local Government (DILG). Later the PNP law
(RA 6975) was amended and the capability of
crime laboratory was enhanced.
Today, both the Philippine National Police and
the National Bureau of Investigation maintain a
fingerprint unit in their respective laboratories
for crime detection.
Filipino practitioners are trained either by the United States
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), England’s Scotland
Yard, or by the Japan International Coordinating Agency
(JICA).