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Although the time when fingerprint identification began is unknown, archaeologists discovered fingerprints pressed into clay tablet contracts from 1792-1750 B.C. in Babylon. In ancient China, many used inked fingerprints on official documents. The oldest documents dated back to third century B.C. China where they found finger and palm prints pressed into clay and wood writing surfaces used to authenticate official seals and legal documents. -
The earliest record of study goes back to Dr. Nehemiah writing a paper describing the patterns he saw on human hands under the microscope, including ridges. -
Following Dr. Nehemiah, he described that "the arrangement of skin ridges is never duplicated in two persons, probably being the first scientist recognize this. -
Purkyn described nine distinct fingerprint patterns that included loops, spirals, circles, and double whorls. -
He began collecting fingerprints and then noticed the unique patterns to each person and they were not altered by age. -
In 1879, he was an assistant clerk in the records office at the Police Station in Paris, and he created a way to identify criminals. The system which is sometimes referred to as Bertillonage, was first used in 1883 to identify a repeating offender. In 1902, he was then credited with solving the first murder using fingerprints. -
He verified that fingerprints don't change with age and along with Sir E. R. Henry, developed the classification system for fingerprints which is still used in the US and Europe. -
He improved fingerprint collection by beginning to note measurements on the identification cards of all arrested person, as well as adding 10 fingerprint impressions. He created his own fingerprint classification system and invented a better way of collecting the impressions. -
Along with the help of two colleagues, he created a system which divided fingerprint records into groups based on whether they have an arch, whorl, or loop pattern. Each fingerprint card in the system was imprinted with all 10 fingerprints of a person and marked with individual characteristics called a "ten card." -
The FBI launched its Advance Fingerprint Identification Technology (AFIT) system, enhancing fingerprint and latent print processing services. Increasing accuracy, daily processing capacity of the agency, and improving the system's availability, it implemented new fingerprint matching algorithm.. With AFIT, the FBI has been able to reduce the number of required manual fingerprint reviews by 90%.