Fingerprint Inheritance

Hypothesis, Variables and Question
The question of this paper was that is there a possibility that fingerprints are inherited between family members. My hypothesis is that if I check for inheritance in the fingerprints that I might be able to find that fingerprint patters are inherited. The dependent variables in this experiment include the members of the family in relevance to me; biological father, stepmother, half brother, stepsister, and myself. The independent variables in this experiment are the papers that were used for taking the fingerprints, the ink used for taking the fingerprints. The last independent variable is the method used to get the fingerprints on the paper. In this experiment there are no control variables.

Materials List
The materials for this project include the blood related and non-blood related and the half blood related siblings. Also required are the fingerprint cards to put the fingerprints of the test subjects on. Another thing is the black ink to get the fingerprints of the test subjects on the paper. To make blown up images of the fingerprints for easier reading and for a better display you need to have a photographic camera to take pictures of the fingerprints. Along with that camera you need to have and Secure Digital memory card (SD card) to put the pictures of the fingerprints on the computer. Also required is the software to enlarge the fingerprint pictures and the printer with ink to print it out. The last bit of materials for this project that you need is the knowledge of how to take the fingerprint correctly. First of all the technique for fingerprinting is called dactyloscopy. To take to fingerprint correctly you must roll the finger across the paper until it creates a more flattened image of the fingerprint on the paper of fingerprint card.

Experimental Procedure
To start off the experiment, I got all of the subjects to thoroughly wash their hands so that the fingerprints would not be tampered with by foreign material. After the test subjects thoroughly washed their hands I pushed their finger with about medium pressure into the inkpad. After I’ve gotten their finger in the ink I put their finger on the paper and with a special procedure I rolled their finger on the paper creating a more two dimensional and a much more legible, easier to understand, and interpretable fingerprint to read. After doing this process with the pinky, ring, middle, index, and thumb on both hands for each test subjects, I continued on to getting just one fingerprint from each person of the same finger to blow up and make a fingerprint family tree of to compare the inheritance of them. I took a picture of the fingerprint from the same finger from everybody and then saved it into an Secure Digital memory card (SD card.) After saving that picture I uploaded the picture onto the computer then inflated the picture and printed it off for further inspection then used the results from those fingerprints for my conclusion.

Data Analysis
Looking at the fingerprints I discovered that fingerprints do not seem to be inherited. Two people not related in this experiment had the same type of fingerprint while the parents of both the test subjects did not have the same fingerprint patterns.


Conclusions
As a conclusion to this project I would have to say that my hypothesis that I stated earlier is wrong. I have found through my testing that fingerprints are not inherited. To revise my hypothesis I would say, “If I check for inheritance through many generations of family I might find inheritance between them.” If I were to re-do this project I would definitely use a family with more blood related siblings so that there would be more to compare from instead of having no blood related siblings.