finger print

By james williamson
  • 1750 BCE

    First Fingerprints

    Fingerprints pressed into clay in Babylon were found by archaelogists from around 1792-1750 B.C.
  • 221 BCE

    Ancient China

    Chinese records from the Qin Dynasty (221-206 BC) include details about using handprints as evidence during burglary investigations.
    Clay seals bearing friction ridge impressions were used during both the Qin and Han Dynasties (221 BC - 220 AD).
  • 1400

    Persia

    The Persian book "Jaamehol-Tawarikh" includes writing about the practice of using fingerprints to identify people (14th century)

  • Dr. Nehemiah Grew

    In a "Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London" paper in 1684, Dr. Nehemiah Grew was the first European to publish friction ridge skin observations.

  • J. C. A. Mayer

    J. C. A. Mayer wrote the book Anatomical Copper-plates with Appropriate Explanations in which he was the first to declare that friction ridge skin is unique.

  • Sir William James Herschel

    Sir William James Herschel, Chief Magistrate of the Hooghly District in Jungipoor, India, first used fingerprints on native contracts. On a whim, and without thought toward personal identification, Herschel had Rajyadhar Konai, a local businessman, impress his hand print on a contract. Herschel started requiring palm prints and later just the index and middle finger on every contract he made

  • Paul-Jean Coulier

    Professor Paul-Jean Coulier, of Val-de-Grâce in Paris, published his observations that latent fingerprints can be developed on paper by iodine fuming, explaining how to preserve such developed impressions and mentioning the potential for identifying suspects' fingerprints by use of a magnifying glass.

  • Juan Vucetich

    Juan Vucetich, an Argentine Police Official, began the first fingerprint files based on Galton pattern types.

  • Alvarez & Galton

    At Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1892, Inspector Eduardo Alvarez made the first criminal fingerprint identification. He was able to identify Francisca Rojas, a woman who 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. Alvarez was trained by Juan Vucetich.

  • Army fingerprints

    U.S. Army begins using fingerprints and the U.S. Department of Justice forms the Bureau of Criminal Identification in Washington, DC to provide a centralized reference collection of fingerprint cards.

  • The fingerprint society

    In 1974, four employees of the Hertfordshire (United Kingdom) Fingerprint Bureau contacted fingerprint experts throughout the UK and began organization of that country's first professional fingerprint organization, the National Society of Fingerprint Officers. The organization initially consisted of only UK experts, but quickly expanded to international scope and was renamed The Fingerprint Society in 1977.

  • INTERPOL

    INTERPOL's Automated Fingerprint Identification System repository exceeds 150,000 sets of fingerprints for important international criminal records from 190 member countries.