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Period: 1792 BCE to 1750 BCE
earliest record
Archaeologists find fingerprints on clay tablets and with ink on records and documents dating back for thousands of years. -
Dr. Nehemiah
Wrote a paper describing fingerprint pattern by observing the patterns under a microscope. -
Johann Christoph Andreas Mayer
Followed up on Dr. Nehemiah’s work, stating “the arrangement of skin ridges is never duplicated in two persons.” -
Jan Evangelist Purkyn
She was able to describe nine different fingerprint patterns. These patterns consist of loops, whorls, spirals, double whorls and arches. -
Sir William Herschel
He became collecting fingerprints. -
Ivan (Juan) Vucetich
He improved fingerprint collecting. He created his own classification system and inventing better ways to collect fingerprints at crime scenes. -
Sir Edmund Richard Henry
He along with two colleagues devised a system which divided the fingerprint records into groups. These groups were based on if the print was an arch, whorl, or loop pattern. -
Sir Francis Galton
Sir Francis Galton was the first man credited with solving a murder crime with fingerprints. He also validated that fingerprints don't change with age. -
first fingerprint database
It would take about three months to look through files of fingerprints manually to find a match. -
AFIS
A digital system that stores all the fingerprint in the database. It does automated fingerprint searches, electronic storage of fingerprint photos and test results.
