Pursuit of Fingerprint History

[josher89]

In my ongoing pursuit of fingerprint knowledge, I continually look to see when the term fingerprint was changed from 'finger print' or 'finger-print'. In doing so, I come across some interesting articles and letters.

Today, I found a letter written to the journal Nature from 1896 wherein the author of the letter (Kumagusu Minakata) shares a passage from an Arabian text written in the ninth century by a sailor and adventurer Sulaiman al-Tajir. The excerpt is as follows (it comes from an 1845 French translation of that document of which I used Google Translate to convert to English so it's not perfect):

The Chinese respect justice in their transactions and in court documents. If a man lends a sum money to someone, he writes a post about it; the borrower, in turn, writes a note, which he marks with two of his joined fingers, the middle finger and the index finger. 2 We put together the two tickets. We fold them one with the other, we write some characters on the place that separates them, then we unfolded and we give the lender the note by which the borrower recognized his ditte. If, later, the borrower denies his debt, they say to him: 'Bring the lender's note.' If the borrower pretends to have no ticket, that he denies having written a ticket accompanied by his signature and his brand, and that his ticket perished, we say to the borrower who denies the litigation: 'Declare by writes that this statement does not concern you; but, if, for its part, the creditor comes to prove what you deny, you will receive twenty sticks on the back, and will pay a fine of twenty thousand (fakkoudj) key brass pieces.

Did the Chinese understand here that a fingerprint was truly unique and could be "matched" to a particular person if they reneged on the debt?

This person was alive during the 800s AD and is describing the purpose of the print, not just its placement on a contract.

As I keep digging, I'll keep posting what I find.

The Antiquity of the Finger-Print Method 1896.pdf

The author originally wrote a letter in 1894 and was unable to provide sources for some of his comments - I'm still trying to track those down but the original letter is below.

The Antiquity of the Finger-Print Method 1894.pdf

[Dr. Borracho]

Did the Chinese understand here that a fingerprint was truly unique and could be "matched" to a particular person if they reneged on the debt?

Our human ancestors were every bit as intelligent as we are and, for the most part, I think they possessed more wisdom than most people do today. That doesn't mean they had knowledge of everything we know. Obviously, not. But they were no dummies. To think we are smarter than they were is pure arrogance on the part of anybody who believes that. I have read in articles on the history of fingerprints prior to Hershel, Faulds, and Galton that the ancients only used fingerprints as an intimate, moral bonding with the promise made in a document. To which I say HOGWASH! Those old guys knew darned good and well that fingerprints could identify the person making the promise or agreement and they used fingerprints for positive identification just as we do today.

[Ernie Hamm]

While I was writing and editing the publication, "Minutiae", at Armor Forensics in 2004, I wrote a short "article" on 'fingerprint" or "finger print" because, like you, I was curious about the change over the years. It is very limited, but this was the information I wrote in Minutiae 74 in 2002:

"FINGER PRINTS VS. FINGERPRINTS

When information is obtained from early sources, you may see “finger prints” used instead of “fingerprints”. Sir Francis Galton’s publication in 1892 was “Finger Prints” and the two-word form was in use for many years. A change to the one-word combination version was helped along when the FBI started using ‘fingerprints’ in the title of their publication, “Classification of Fingerprints”. In 1954, there was more movement to the one-word version when Frederick R. Cherrill published, “The Fingerprint System at Scotland Yard”. The venerable Scotland Yard had capitulated! In July 1972, the “Finger Print and Identification Magazine” of the Institute of Applied Science became the “Fingerprint and Identification Magazine” and the last authoritative publication had adopted the one-word version. Their reasons are interesting, but we leave it to you to read their comments. This is why you may still see ‘finger prints’ when references are taken directly from early sources. (Fingerprint and Identification Magazine, The Institute of Applied Science, July 1972)".

[Shane Turnidge]

Ernie, we may be having a similar discussion in the future as to why we call finger scans fingerprints.
Shane

[Ernie Hamm]

Shane,

In your discussion, how did prints become impressions?

Ernie

[Shane Turnidge]

Ernie, I guess the vernacular of fingerprints has morphed around a bit. Impressions were just that, impressions.
In reality the word impression implies a plastic impression, an indentation if you will. A deposit is a deposit but many still refer to a deposit as an impression or closer to the truth, a print.
With the generalized use of live scan systems the inked fingerprint is now a rarity. I'm just wondering when the industry will adopt the term finger scans as opposed to fingerprints. I think it's an important distinction, one that may help the industry come to terms with optical artifacts.
When that happens, the history of the word fingerprint will have morphed once again.

Shane

[Dr. Borracho]

After almost fifty years of involvement in fingerprints in one manner or another, I have to say that our discipline's vocabulary is terribly imprecise. To start with, the most imprecise term of all is the word fingerprint itself.

Fingerprint (Noun):
1. The friction ridge skin on the distal phalange of a finger.
2. The pattern of friction ridges on the distal phalange of a finger.
3. An inked image made by rolling a finger tip on an inked surface, then on a form designed for recording the pattern of friction ridge skin.
4. An invisible, chance reproduction in sweat or foreign matter of the pattern of friction ridge skin on a surface that has been touched.

So we testify like this:
"Fingerprints are unique and persistent. I compared this fingerprint to this other fingerprint and determined they were both made by the same fingerprint."

I have less trouble with the distinction between inked prints and live scan prints. For the most part, they can be lumped together without differentiation as "exemplars." But there are times on the witness stand and in technical papers when the distinction between the skin, the pattern, a latent print, and an exemplar are crucial, but unless the speaker or writer is very precise in the use of modifiers, our use of terms makes confusion and misunderstanding almost unavoidable.

[Ernie Hamm]

“very precise in the use of modifiers, our use of terms makes confusion and misunderstanding almost unavoidable”, excellent point, good doctor.

‘Print’ cannot be morphed into ‘impression’. These are two different conditions. A ‘print’ is generally considered to be of two dimensions and an ‘impression’ as having three dimensions (do not opine that latent deposits can be three dimensional because that would put them in the category of a form of monaknock, not impression). 2D and 3D are not the same. This transition/change of the term is appearing in other pattern-matching disciplines, but the terms are still different regardless of the discipline. The examination and processing is different, the recovery and documentation is different, the comparative standard preparation is different, the comparative examination is different and, depending on the discipline, the conclusion can be different.

“The Crime Laboratory” by James W. Osterburg is an excellent publication and one of the chapters is
“Prints and Impressions”. Separate terms, but put together in one chapter for the nature of the evidence.

This change came about by boards/committees formed to set forth definitions to terms being used, but they failed in this one.

As far as just allowing the term to be changed, take a look at material attributed to Abraham Lincoln in the “five legged dog”.

[gerritvolckeryck]

My Chinese is not that good, but I can help a bit with French. I've made some corrections to the English translation from the 1896 article:

The Chinese respect justice in their transactions and in court documents. If a man lends a sum of money to someone, he writes a note about it; the borrower, in turn, writes a note, which he marks with two of his joined fingers, the middle finger and the index finger. The two notes are put together. They are folded, one with the other. Some characters are written on the spot that separates them. Afterwards the notes are unfolded and the lender is given the note by which the borrower recognized his debt. If, later, the borrower denies his debt, they say to him: 'Bring the lender's note.' If the borrower pretends to have no note, that he denies having written a note accompanied by his signature and his mark, and that his note got lost, it is said to the borrower who denies the debt: 'Declare in writing that this debt does not concern you; but, if, the lender proves what you deny, you will receive twenty lashes of a stick on the back, and will pay a fine of twenty thousand (fakkoudj) brass pieces.

As for your search on "fingerprints", "finger-prints" and "finger prints", I've made a list of articles/books with "finger" in the title which I have in my library: https://1drv.ms/x/s!Aqjb0ZvnQ95ah4NQtt- ... g?e=AfbiVp. Maybe this helps you in any way.

But: the problem already starts with Galton : https://1drv.ms/u/s!Aqjb0ZvnQ95ah4NSjNV ... w?e=QGzPyg. His first book is called "Finger Prints", the third "Fingerprint Directories"

All the best,

Gerrit

[josher89]

Thanks for the better translation. My wife is a foreign language teacher and she would keel over if I told her I used Google Translate on that French snippet.

[josher89]

As I continue to look for the change-over from finger print to fingerprint, I came across a book from 1920 (hint) that had this, among other questions.

How many types or patterns are there in finger prints? Name them.

Who knows the answer to this, at least based on information from 1920? Answer is attached - but guess before you look at the answer.

[Ernie Hamm]

I somewhat recognize the phraseology of the answer. I looked at my old listing of my library (since scattered) and I couldn't find a publication with the date of 1920, but Frederick Kuhne wrote The Fingerprint Instructor in 1917 and he probably had reprints that I did not find during my years of searching. As I remember, The Fingerprint Instructor was a hard book to find during my years of searching. After I got my initial First Edition of the The Fingerprint Instructor, I was finding them everywhere so I did have a number of them accumulated and shared them over the years.