This document provides information on the history and development of fingerprint identification. Some key points: - Fingerprints first began being used for identification in the late 19th century in India and Argentina. Sir Francis Galton established their individuality and permanence in 1892. - The Henry Classification System, developed in India in 1897, became the standard fingerprint classification system used in English-speaking countries. - Fingerprint use began being adopted for criminal identification in the early 20th century, first in England and Wales in 1901 and then in the US starting in the 1900s and growing rapidly in the following decades. - The FBI began centralizing US fingerprint records and identification efforts in the 1920s, growing their database to

1. 1
DEFINITION
The skin on the palmer and planter surfaces is
continuously wrinkled with narrow minute ridges
i.e. also known as friction ridges ; and is also
completely free from the hair and oil glands. The
study of the skin patterning on fingers, palm, sole
and toes is termed as Dermatoglyphics (Derma=
skin and glyphe= a carving).
In common parlance, the study of ridge
patterning is known as fingerprints, which is a
reproduction of the friction ridges of the finger on
a surface.

2. 2
Development of Fingerprint
Fingerprint ridges are formed during the
third to fourth month of foetal development
and their formation completed by the sixth
months
The ridges, thus, formed during the foetal
period do not change their course or
alignment throughout the life of an
individual, until destroyed by
decomposition of skin, after death.

3. 3
HISTORY OF FINGERPRINT
 Around 1870 a French anthropologist devised a
system to measure and records 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's System, named after its inventor,
Alphonse Bertillon's, 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's measurements were nearly the
same, and his name was William West.

4. 4
Upon investigation, there were indeed two men
who looked exactly alike, but were allegedly
not related. Their names were Will and William
West respectively. Their Bertillon's
measurements were close enough to identify
them as the same person. However, a
fingerprint comparison quickly and correctly
identified them as two different people. (Per
prison records discovered later, the West men
were apparently identical twin brothers and
each had a record of correspondence with the
same immediate family relatives.)

5. 5
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.

6. 6
1686 - Malpighi
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.

7. 7
1823 - Purkinje
In 1823, John Evangelist
Purkinje, 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

8. 8
1856 - Hershel
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 a
contract.

9. 9
Herschel's fingerprints recorded
over a period of 57 years
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.

10. 10
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.

11. 11
1880 - Faulds
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.

12. 12
Also in 1880, Dr. 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.
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.

13. 13
1882 - Thompson
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. 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.

14. 14
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 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.

15. 15
1888 - Galton
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.

16. 16
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.
1892 - Vucetich & Galton
 Juan Vucetich made the first criminal fingerprint identification in 1892. 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.
 Sir Francis Galton 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.

17. 17
1897 - Haque & Bose
On 12 June 1987, 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 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
all English-speaking countries.

18. 18
1901 - Henry
Introduction of fingerprints
for criminal identification in
England and Wales, using
Galton's observations and
revised by Sir Edward
Richard Henry.

19. 19
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 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.

20. 20
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
fingerprintCards.
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.

21. 21
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.
1918-Edmond Locard wrote that if 12 points (Galton's
Details) were the same between two fingerprints, it
would suffice as a positive identification. 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.

22. 22
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.
 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 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.

23. 23
2005-The FBI's Integrated AFIS (IAFIS) in Clarksburg,
WV has more than 49 million individual computerized
fingerprint records for known criminals. Old paper
fingerprint cards for the civil files are still manually
maintained in a warehouse facility (rented shopping center
space) in Fairmont, WV, though most enlisted military
service member fingerprint cards received after 1990, and
all military-related fingerprint cards received after 19 May
2000, have now been computerized and can be searched
internally by the FBI. In some future build of IAFIS, the
FBI may make such civil file AFIS searches available to
other federal crime laboratories.
All US states and most larger cities have their own
AFIS databases, each with a subset of fingerprint records
that is not stored in any other database. Thus, law
enforcement fingerprint interface standards are very
important to enable sharing records and mutual searches
for identifying criminals.

24. 24
ANATOMY OF FINGER SKIN
 The skin consists of two main
layers: the outer skin or
epidermis, and the inner or true
skin, known the dermis. The
epidermis is constantly being
worn away and replaced by new
skin generated by the upper
layer of the dermis - a papillary
layer (stratum mucous) which is
the source of the ridges known as
'papillary ridges'.
 The sweat glands, located in the
dermis, discharge sweat at the
skin surface through sweat pores
found at the top of the ridges.

25. 25
CLASSIFCATION OF FINGERPRINT
 The finger prints of immense help to the law enforcement
agencies, the crime detection departments mainly in two
ways.
1. It helps in the process of general identification by means
of records (prints) of large number of individuals.
2. It helps in specific identification by means of latent prints
(chance prints) left at the crime scene, on a weapon, or
on other objects at the location of crime.
The prime function is met by recording prints of all the
under trials who pass through police departments as
suspects. Prints are recorded even for those applicants
who possess certain positions in public and private
sector, military personnel, police and security forces and
other such agencies.
The second function, which deals with the specific
identification through latent prints.

26. 26
CLASSIFICATION IS MADE TO SYSTEMATISE THE LARGE QUANTITY OF
FINGERPRINTS THAT ANY SPECIFIC PRINT COULD BE RETRIEVED
QUICKLY FROM THE BULK AT THE TIME OF NEED FOR THE PURPOSE OF
COMPARISON.IN THE TEN DIGIT CLASSIFICATION SYSTEM, THE TEN DIGIT
FINGERPRINT SLIP IS ANALYZED UNDER THE FOLLOWING SEVEN SYSTEM
1. PRIMARY CLASSIFICATION SYSTEM
2. MAJOR DIVISIONS SYSTEM
3. SECONDARY CLASSIFICATION SYSTEM
4. SUB-SECONDARY CLASSIFICATION
SYSTEM
5. SECOND SUB-SECONDARY
CLASSIFICATION SYSTEM
6. FINAL CLASSIFICATION SYSTEM
7 . KEY CLASSIFICATION SYSTEM

27. 27
PRIMARY CLASSIFICATION SYSTEM
The percentage of plain arches, tented arches,
and composite patterns is relatively low in
comparison to the frequency of loop and
whorl patterns .Thus for the purpose of
primary classification system, plain arch and
tented arch have been grouped under loop
types and composite patterns under the whorl
types.

28. 28
THE TEN FINGERS OF THE TWO HANDS ARE
GROUPED IN FIVE PAIRS IN THE FOLLOWING
MANNER.
PAIR I INCLUDES RIGHT THUMB AND RIGHT INDEX (RT & RI)
PAIR II INCLUDES RIGHT MIDDLE AND RIGHT RING (RM &RR)
PAIR III INCLUDES RIGHT LITTLE AND LEFT THUMB (RL & RT)
PAIR IV INCLUDES LEFT INDEX AND LEFT MIDDLE (LI & LM)
PAIR V INCLUDES LEFT RING AND LEFT LITTLE (LR & LL)
For arriving at the primary formula, the second part
of each pair is taken for the numerator while the
first of each pair is taken for the denominator.

29. 29
On considering the first pair, i. e. Right Thumb and
Right Index, the possible combination of the
patterns existing could either be loop (including
plain and tented arches) or a whorl (including
composites) pattern on the right thumb. Similarly,
the Right Index would show these two patterns only
.Therefore, the possible combination of patterns on
the first pair would be LL, LW, WL and WW.
Similarly the second, third, fourth and fifth pairs
would also have these four possible combinations.
Now, when the four possible combinations of the
first pair are combined with that of the four possible
combinations of second pair , the resultant number
of possible combinations would be 4x4=16.

30. 30
When the four combination s of third pair are
associated with the combinations of first and second
pairs the possible number of combinations
increases to 4x4x4 = 64 thus on associating , the
fourth pair the possible number of combinations
moves to 64x4=256 or 4x4x4x4=256 and finally the
number of possible combinations moves to 256x4
equal 4x4x4x4x4=1024 on including the possible
combinations of the fifth pair. The 1024
combinations could be represented in a chart having
32x32 cabinets arranged horizontally and vertically
which would provide location for all combination
of loops and whorls of the ten digits taken in five
pairs.

31. 31
For practical purpose,
different numerical values
have been assigned to the
patterns according to their
occurrence in different pairs.
The loops (includes plain
arches and tented arches)
have a zero value in the
primary classification
system.
Whereas the whorls and
composites are assigned
certain numerical values
according to their
occurrence in different pairs.
PAIR PATTERN
TYPE
NUMERIC
AL
VALUE
FIRST PAIR
(RT & RI)
LOOP TYPES
WHORLS &COMPOSITES
0
16
SECOND PAIR
(RM & RR)
LOOP TYPES
WHORLS &COMPOSITES
0
8
THIRD PAIR
(RL & LT)
LOOP TYPES
WHORLS &COMPOSITES
0
4
FOURTH PAIR
(LI & LM)
LOOP TYPES
WHORLS &COMPOSITES
0
2
FIFTH PAIR
(LR & LL)
LOOP TYPES
WHORLS &COMPOSITES
0
1

32. 32
On taking the second of each pair as numerator
and the first of each pair as denominator the
arrangement of the digits will be as under:
And on assigning the numerical values the arrangements
of primary formula would be :
When all the ten digits possess whorl or composite
patterns. But under such conditions when the patterns on
all the ten digits are loop type then the situation would be :
RI RR LT LM LL
RT RM RL LI LR
16+8+4+2+1
=
31
16+8+4+2+1 31
0+0+0+0+0
=
0
0+0+0+0+0
=
0

33. 33
As stated earlier that the five pairs provide 1024
possible combinations and the numerical value
totals out to be 3131 for the five pairs so a value
of 1 is added to both the numerator and least
figure shifts from 00 to 11. The complete
primary formula will fluctuate between 11 to
3232 in case of all ten fingers exhibiting all loop
patterns and all whorl patterns respectively.
1.When any finger is damaged or missing the
pattern of such a finger is labeled according to the
type of pattern occurring on the corresponding
finger of the other hand and classification is
made.
2.If same digits of both the hands are missing or
damaged the pattern for such fingers is taken as
whorl type for the purpose of primary
classification.

34. 34
MAJOR DIVISIONS SYSTEM
THE MAJOR DIVISIONS ARE CREATED BY COUNTING THE RIDGES
IN LOOP PATTERNS AND BY TRACING THE WHORL PATTERNS
ON THE THUMBS ONLY FOR BOTH THE RIGHT AND LEFT
HANDS. THE LOOP PATTERNS ON THE THUMB HAVE BEEN
SUBDIVIDED INTO THREE CATEGORIES (OR GROUPS)
ACCORDING TO THE NUMBER OF RIDGES COUNTED BETWEEN
THE DELTA AND THE CORE OF A LOOP. THE CATEGORIZATION
OF LOOPS ON THUMB IS MADE IN THE FOLLOWING MANNER:
1. All loops on thumb with ridge count between 1-12 are identified as
‘I’ Type.
2. All loops on thumb with ridge count between 13-19 are identified
as ‘M’ type.
3. All loops on thumb with ridge count 20 and above are identified
as ‘O’ type.

35. 35
Thus the value of major divisions would fluctuate between II to OO
types
The whorl and composite patterns are traced in a manner as listed
under tracing of whorls and “I” “M” AND “O”. Grouping is obtained.
For major divisions, the type of pattern on right thumb for
denominator. Thus with three types we obtain the following nine
combinations.
RT/LT RT/LT RT/LT
I/I M/I O/I
I/M M/M O/M
I/O M/O O/O

36. 36
SECONDARY CLASSIFICATION
SYSTEM
For secondary system, the patterns appearing on “Index
fingers ”of the right and left hand are considered. The nine
pattern types –PLAIN ARCH, RADIALLOOP, ULNAR
LOOP, WHORL, CENTRAL POCKET LOOP (DOUBLE
LOOP ), TWINED LOOP (DOUBLE LOOP), and
ACCIDENTALS-are represented by the following eight
symbols: A , T , R , U , W , C , S, and X. For arriving at
secondary classification the patterns occurring on right
Index finger are taken as numerator and the Left Index
finger for denominator. These eight type of pattern symbols
would provide 64 possible combinations of right IndexLeft
Index
Thus the secondary formula for any individual would
fluctuate between AA type .For representing this formula
capital symbols are used.