CLPEX Chat Board

I'm a bit of a history buff (some call me a nerd) and I've been really trying to accumulate original books of significant (and not-so-significant) books relating to fingerprint history.

My question is this: does anyone know when fingerprints went from Finger Prints to fingerprints (i.e. take out the space and make it one word)?

A follow-up question: Why does the Brits and maybe the rest of the world call them finger marks and most of us in the US call them fingerprints? When did that change occur since Faulds was British and he was calling them Finger Prints?

Maybe the shift from two words to a compound word was gradual and without a year that could be pinpointed.

As for "Mark" versus "fingerprint," the word you use in the US is "Latent." In much of the world, "Mark" means a fingerprint developed on evidence or at a scenes of crime.

Josh,

You aren't truly a nerd until you've spent any amount of time combing through http://www.archive.org. You can find old classification systems that never caught on. You can find contemporary books that were torrented, but somehow became public domain through FOIA requests, cheesy old movies from the 1920's about Fingerprints and articles with cheesy fingerprint puns about reading 'between the lines'. The internet is your playground...

To your question, even Galton went from 'Finger Prints' in 1892 to 'Fingerprint Directories' in 1895 and Faulds preferred 'Finger-Prints' in 1912, so I doubt there was any definitive switch. With regards to finger marks, even Quakers were using the term in American religious literature in 1857.

Enjoy!

For this Brit, I think the following sums the 'Mark' and 'Print' situation up:

......Areas of friction ridge detail of an unknown origin that are retrieved from a scene or an exhibit are commonly referred to as a “finger mark” and friction ridge detail of known origin as recorded on a fingerprint form is commonly referred to as a “fingerprint”......

I must admit to being a bit of a nerd too.....and I always have a scan in old book shops for ancient fingerprint related books!

Back when I was doing Minutiae for Armor Forensics I put out an article on this subject with information gleamed from “Fingerprint and Identification Magazine”, which was first known as “Finger Print and Identification Magazine”. The magazine published something on the change from “Finger Print” to “Fingerprint” in the title. However, I am long gone from Armor/Forensic Source and no longer have access to those issues of Minutiae while I was the Editor. I may have a copy somewhere, but the cobwebs are very thick these days and I need to look in a lot of places to find anything. However, if anyone has copies of Minutiae or, even better, copies of FP&I magazines, there could be information of interest to your inquiry.

BTW, I am talking years and years ago when this was published.

Boyd Baumgartner wrote:Josh,

You aren't truly a nerd until you've spent any amount of time combing through http://www.archive.org. You can find old classification systems that never caught on. . . .

I just read "The Seymour Fingerprint System" (it's very short). My favorite parts:

"Keep a small bottle of gasoline and a package of surgeons' cotton handy so that the depositor may clean his finger." Gasoline! What could go wrong?

"Another simple and rapid way of comparing is to divide the print into one hundred squares . . . Each small square will have its own peculiarities . . . and they are easily compared." Yeah, unless there's any distortion at all.

"NEVER, under any circumstances take scars into consideration" -- going on to explain that scars always disappear over time.

Aren't Flash Drives (and a little luck) wonderful. I found my draft for Minutiae 74 (June 2006) with the following comment:

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)


So, this will provide a pointer to FP&I Magazine, July 1972 (I gave my back issues away, but someone should have the issue) for their input into the change. Good reading!!!

Ernie

Good reading.

Great responses everyone!!! I just picked up a book on amazon.com from 1919 (I think I got a 1938 reprint) that was specifically mentioned in the 1942 Boy Scout Fingerprint Merit Badge Handbook. I am at home now so the name escapes me but the truly cool thing about this particular book is it was published with 11 additional pages, folded in the back inner sleeve, and they were all still there! I'll re-post next week with its name.

Boyd, I've spent countless hours pouring over the online Library of Congress finding old FP cards, pictures, etc. and in fact, my most recent signature (I've since removed it) was from the same source. Whelp, now I need to spend some time on archive.org for more. I was on there a bit ago and downloaded some of Faulds' books as well as Perkinje's book, in German. Never thought about watching movies. I have used it to play video games at home, though since they've imported console gaming.

As far as the gradual change and mark vs print, thank you Michelle C for your definition of the two.

Ernie,

What about shoe prints and shoeprints? Tire prints and tireprints?

JohnV

John,

No idea. They lost me when a two-dimensional track (Webster Dictionary: mark made by an object that has passed) became a three-dimensional impression.

Ernie

Hi Ernie

A few decades ago, I was taught that a "print" is a two dimensional reproduction and an "impression" is a three dimensional impression. Thus, a fingerprint developed on glass using fingerprint powder, then lifted and placed on a lift card was a "print" and a fingerprint left by a burglar removing the putty from the window frame and photographed in the putty, was an "impression."

I am somewhat distressed by the interchangeability of the two words nowadays. In your heyday, did you make the same distinction between "print" and "impression," as related to fingerprints or tire prints/impressions, etc?

An interesting question, especially for friction ridge prints. I cannot remember having a finger impression to compare. I could have had one in my 27 years, but I just cannot recall encountering any “impression” evidence. However, for the others I would have used “print”, usually preceded by ‘latent’ as one poster has mentioned unless it was a visible print.

As for footwear (not shoe) and tires, I changed in my later years to using “track” and to using “footwear” (an all inclusive term) instead of “shoe”. Track, as I indicated in my posting, is defined as a mark made by an object that has passed. It covers all forms and types and is a generally accepted term to all persons. The use of “impression” to cover all forms is just inaccurate. The recovery methods and comparative techniques can differ quite a bit between a two-dimensional and a three-dimensional track. The change in the lexicon came after I left the discipline, but I still do not understand the reasoning even though I have an idea of how it came about. Also, as you mentioned, the ‘impression’ term seems to be showing up in discussions involving friction ridge evidence and that is troubling.

There is an anecdote attributed to Abraham Lincoln about a dog having five legs if you call his tail a leg. As Honest Abe said, this would be wrong because a tail is not a leg. You cannot redefine reality. Two-dimensional representations are not three-dimensional in form, which is what "impression" would imply.

Ernie Hamm wrote: I cannot remember having a finger impression to compare.

I think you and I both took the latent print photography classes back when 4X5 CPO sheet film was the standard. One of the class exercises was an impression in soft clay that had to be photographed with oblique lighting to maximize shadows in the furrows.

Exactly once in my career did I have such evidence. It was a "chop shop" for stolen motor homes and travel trailers. The putty the bad guys would peel out of the window mountings would get thrown to the side. In a pile of balls of that old putty, I found a number of great latent print impressions to photograph. Bob May would have been proud!

I am distressed now that the term "friction ridge skin impressions" is used more and more to refer to two dimensional latent prints, mostly developed with chemistry and scanned or digitally photographed. I have voiced my opinion, but to no avail. The times, they are a'changing.

The name of the book is called "The Finger Print Instructor" by Kuhne (published by Munn & Co., Inc. -- they also publish Scientific American) and it was originally printed in 1916 but I have a 1941 edition. Great old musty-smelling book.

They call fingerprints in this book impressions...

However, Frederick Kuhne titled his work “The Finger Print Instructor”, not “The Finger Impression Instructor”. BTW, my first edition of this work cited 1917 and not 1916.

These early historical references illustrate the interspersing of the terms “finger prints” and “fingerprints” (but not “impressions”) which was the topic of interest in your initial posting before the diversion in semantics.

Classification and Uses of Finger Prints, E.R. Henry, 1900, 1913, 1934, 1937
Single Fingerprint System, J.A. Larson, 1924
Finger-Prints Can Be Forged, Albert Wehde, 1924
A Study of Fingerprints, Their Uses and Classification, IAS, 1925
Fingerprints, Secret Service and Crime Detection, T.G. Cooke, 1930 (et al)
Fingerprints Simplified, James Holt, 1932, 1940, 1941
Finger Print Expert, Harold A. Frankel, 1932
Fingerprints: History, Law and Romance, George W. Wilton, 1938
Practical Fingerprinting, B.C. Bridges, 1942
An Introduction to Fingerprints, J.H. Duncan, 1942
Finger Prints, Palms and Soles, Harold Cummins and Charles Midlo, 1943

There are others, but these were in my library (since donated). “Finger Prints”, Francis Galton, 1897 was once in my library but was donated and believed lost in a fire in England.