Project Description

Journey back only a short time in history, when esteemed judges and assembled juries had only the testimony of witnesses and sometimes the coerced confessions of the accused to rely on, and there can be little doubt that every now and then innocent parties were executed, and the guilty went free. These were the days before CSI, before ballistics, chemical tests, dentistry, and fingerprinting when the only evidence was what was seen, what was heard and what was supposed.

By the dawning of the industrial age in the mid-eighteenth century however, knowledge of the physical world was becoming more advanced. Scholars in scientific communities began making ever increasing progress in the fields of medicine, chemistry, biology and physics and slowly, the justice system began to consider expert testimony from these learned men in what would eventually become the discipline of forensic science.

Published in Discover Your Ancestors Bookezine issue five in 2016