History of Fingerprinting

• Prehistoric fingerprints were used in ancient Babylon and China for business transaction seals





Ancient Chinese Fingerprint Clay Seals

• In 1686 Marcello Malpighi observed the ridges, loops, and spirals present in fingerprints.

• In 1823 John Evangelist Purkinje discussed his thesis on the nine different fingerprint patterns.

• In 1858 Sir William James Herschel observed the importance of fingerprints in the identification of a person through his personal business practices with the locals of the Hooghly district in Jungipoor, India.

Sir William James Herschel

• In 1863 Professor Paul-Jean Coulier, of Val-de-Grâce in Paris, explains how iodine fuming can be used to develop fingerprints on paper and the importance of observing fingerprints with a magnifying glass.

• In 1870 Dr. Henry Faulds noticed the importance of identification by fingerprinting and created a means of fingerprint classification. Later in 1880, he published an article called “Nature” on the importance of fingerprint identification and methods for obtaining fingerprints.

Dr. Henry Faulds

• In 1882 Gilbert Thompson was the first person in the US to use fingerprints against forgery.





Receipt From Gilbert Thompson

• In 1882 Alphonse Bertillon created the Bertillon System which measures the lengths of different parts of the body such as head length, length of the middle finger, length of the left foot, head width, etc.

Example of the Bertillon System

• In 1891 Juan Vucetich of the Argentine Police created one of the first fingerprint databases. Later in 1892 he made the first successful criminal fingerprint identification.

• In 1900 Mr. Edward Richard Henry went before the United Kingdom Home Security Office to explain his book "The Classification and Use of Fingerprints.". This lead to the replacement of the Bertillon system. In 1901 he created the Fingerprint Branch at New Scotland Yard using his system of fingerprint classification.

Edward Richard Henry

• In 1902 Dr. Henry P. DeForrest began the first systematic use of fingerprints in the U.S.

• In 1903 NY state prison began using a fingerprint identification system for criminals in the U.S.

• In 1905 the U.S. army began the using fingerprints. The Navy followed in 1906 and then after by the Marines.

• In 1918 Edmond Locard determined that if 12 points were the same between two fingerprints, it would be enough to prove a positive identification.

• In 1924 the Identification Division of the FBI was established. by 1971, the FBI had manually processed 200 million fingerprint identification cards. Then the automated fingerprint identification system was introduced and the files were put into computerized files.





• In 2011 the largest AFIS depository in America operated by the Dept. of Homeland Security contained 100 million two-finger records.