HANDWRITING

History of Handwriting Analysis

The interest in handwriting as an indicator of personality has its origins far back in history. Over 2000 years ago, Aristotle noticed the correlation between handwriting and personality while the Chinese independently also made the observation that there was a connection between character and writing.

It was however, only in 1622 that an Italian physician and professor of philosophy at the University of Bologna, published a book describing the analysis of character through the study of handwriting.

In the late 1800's, Abbe Michon who was the headmaster of a school in Paris and a respected intellectual, wrote several books on the subject and coined the name of "graphology". Later, his successor, Crepieux Jamin, classified the many features of graphology into a comprehensive system.

Meanwhile, during the 1890's in Germany, Dr Ludwig Klages, a philosopher and graphologist, applied gestalt theory to graphology, advanced his theories of rhythm and "form level" and significantly broadened the scope of graphology.

Max Pulver, a Swiss professor who lectured in Graphology at the University of Zurich used psychoanalysis for the first time in the interpretation of graphology. This line of investigation was also followed by Ania Teillard, who worked closely with C.G. Jung for 20 years and applied his typological theories (extrovert and introvert etc.) to the theory of graphology.

Alfred Binet, the renowned psychologist who founded the present method of I.Q. Testing for intelligence was a firm supporter of handwriting analysis. He confirmed that certain character traits are reflected in handwriting.

As a method of personality assessment, handwriting analysis has been validated by research using both empirical and clinical procedures.

The 12 Handwriting Characteristics

Line Quality

Spacing of words and letters

Ratio of the relative height, width, and size of the letters

Pen lifts and separations

Connecting strokes

Beginning and end ending strokes

Unusual letter formation

Shading or pen pressure

Slant

Baseline habits

Flourishes and embellishments

Diacritic placement

Check Forgery Activity
For this activity we had to write a fake check and tear it up, then we had to put someone else's check together and identify the person by analyzing the handwriting.

Famous Forgery Case
On March 1, 1932, Charles Lindbergh Jr., the 20-month-old son of the famous aviator, was kidnapped, and although a ransom of $50,000 was paid, the child was never returned. His body was discovered in May just a few miles from his home. Tracking the circulation of the bills used in the ransom payment, authorities were led to Bruno Hauptmann, who was found with over $14,000 of the money in his garage. While Hauptmann claimed that the money belonged to a friend, key testimony from handwriting analysts matched his writing to that on the ransom notes. Additional forensic research connected the wood in Hauptmann's attic to the wood used in the make-shift ladder that the kidnappers built to reach the child's bedroom window. Hauptmann was convicted and executed in 1936.

LIP ANALYSIS

For this experiment, we had to put on lipstick and press our lips against a notecard and then observe features of the lip print.








After the first part of the experiment, we then had to put the lipstick on again and make a lip print on a piece of paper along with other members of our group. After that, we rotated tables and tried to match the lip prints on the notecard with the lip prints on the piece of paper by using the defining features of each print. My entire class got 100% of the matching correct.

Lip analysis is probably the least useful form of investigation by a forensic scientist as not everyone wears lipstick or leaves lip print after they commit a crime.

HAIR/FIBERS

History of Hair and Fiber Analysis

One of the first papers on hair analysis was published in France in 1857. & by the early 1900's microscopic examination of hair was established and well used. A single hair holds information which can help us find out the race, sex, and the age of its owner, even though a fingerprint can hold more information a single strand of hair will do if that is all to be found. Hairs can be found anywhere: On the suspect, the victim, the crime scene, etc. Hair is composed of many many elements. But the most common are protein substances and keratin. Hairs absorbent property comes in handy with arsenic poisoning cases, because it is found in the hair. Examination of the roots can help let scientists know if the hair had fallen out or if it was forcefully removed. Scientists can find whether hair is human or animal, what race it is, what species of animal if animal hair, or what body part it came from. Fibers although let the scientists know what kind of clothing the suspect was wearing or has. Fibers which are synthetic must be identified with infrared spectrophotometry. Scientists can determine the identity of a fiber by the way it absorbs light.




Analysis of Hair and Fibers
 The analysis of hair and fiber under a microscope can tell us many different things about a suspect or victim. For example, we can use hair to tell their race, and if they use shampoo or conditioner. Fibers can also be used to tell what kind of clothes that they were wearing. Examples of Fibers you may find are cotton, silk, wool, nylon, and polyester. Hair and fiber analysis is not the most reliable way of trying to identify a suspect because it only tells you certain details about them and not their identity, that is unless you take DNA from the hair or fiber sample.

FINGERPRINTING

History of Fingerprinting
Fingerprints have been found on ancient Babylonian clay tablets, seals, and pottery.They have also been found on the walls of Egyptian tombs and on Minoan, Greek, and Chinese pottery, as well as on bricks and tiles from ancient Babylon and Rome. Some of these fingerprints were deposited unintentionally by the potters and masons as a natural consequence of their work, and others were made in the process of adding decoration. However, on some pottery, fingerprints have been impressed so deeply into the clay that they were possibly intended to serve as an identifying mark by the maker.
Fingerprints were used as signatures in ancient Babylon in the second millennium BCE. In order to protect against forgery, parties to a legal contract would impress their fingerprints into a clay tablet on which the contract had been written. By 246 BCE, Chinese officials were impressing their fingerprints into the clay seals used to seal documents. With the advent of silk and paper in China, parties to a legal contract impressed their handprints on the document. Sometime before 851 CE, an Arab merchant in China, Abu Zayd Hasan, witnessed Chinese merchants using fingerprints to authenticate loans. By 702, Japan had adopted the Chinese practice of sealing contracts with fingerprints.
Although ancient peoples probably did not realize that fingerprints could uniquely identify individuals, references from the age of the Babylonian king Hammurabi (1792-1750 BCE) indicate that law officials would take the fingerprints of people who had been arrested. During China's Qin Dynasty, records have shown that officials took hand prints, foot prints as well as finger prints as evidence from a crime scene.In China, around 300 CE, handprints were used as evidence in a trial for theft. By 650, the Chinese historian Kia Kung-Yen remarked that fingerprints could be used as a means of authentication. In his Jami al-Tawarikh (Universal History), the Persian physician Rashid-al-Din Hamadani (also known as "Rashideddin", 1247–1318) refers to the Chinese practice of identifying people via their fingerprints, commenting: "Experience shows that no two individuals have fingers exactly alike." In Persia at this time, government documents may have been authenticated with thumbprints.


Types of Fingerprints

Loop:
 
Whorl:

Arch:





Procedures for Collecting Fingerprints:

Off of glass:
Put graphite powder on the glass and use tape to lift the powder in the area of the fingerprint. 



Off of black surface:
Take corn starch and spread it over the fingerprint and use tape to collect it.
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Works Cited: Wikipedia, Google