Possible Lincoln artifact discovered!

[L Verge]

Great comment, Gene!

According to this source on the history of fingerprinting, the concept was not developed until around 1870 and took another 30+ years to be really put into use.

"Other visible human characteristics such as facial features tend to change with age, but fingerprints are relatively persistent. Barring injuries or surgery causing deep scarring, or diseases such as leprosy damaging the formative layers of friction ridge skin, finger and palm print features have never been shown to move about or change their unit relationship throughout the life of a person (and injuries, scarring and diseases tend to exhibit telltale indicators of unnatural change).

"In earlier civilizations, branding or maiming were used to mark persons as criminals. The thief was deprived of the hand which committed the thievery. Ancient Romans employed the tattoo needle to identify and prevent desertion of mercenary soldiers from their ranks.

"Before the mid-1800s, law enforcement officers with extraordinary visual memories, so-called "camera eyes," identified previously arrested offenders by sight alone. Photography lessened the burden on memory, but was not the answer to the criminal identification problem. Personal appearances change.

"Around 1870, French anthropologist Alphonse Bertillon devised a system to measure and record the dimensions of certain bony parts of the body. These measurements were reduced to a formula which, theoretically, would apply only to one person and would not change during his/her adult life.

"The Bertillon System was generally accepted for thirty years. But the anthropometric measurement system never recovered from the events of 1903, when a man named Will West was sentenced to the US Penitentiary at Leavenworth, Kansas. It was discovered there was already a prisoner at the penitentiary, whose Bertillon measurements were nearly the same, and his name was William West.

"Upon investigation, there were indeed two men who looked very similar. Their names were William and Will West. Their Bertillon measurements were close enough to identify them as the same person. However, a fingerprint comparison quickly and correctly identified them as two different people. (According to prison records publicized years later, the West men were apparently identical twin brothers and each had a record of correspondence with the same immediate family relatives.)"