MatLab based GUI tool to establish relationship among handwriting of family members: a computational study

Abstract

Handwriting is a unique & individual style of person’s neuromuscular activity where the hand moves on a surface with any writing instrument, what appears is an impersonal and formalized writing style. Cursive handwriting has been reported as the prominent style of writing, but imitating print letter shapes or using capital letters are more prevalent among children. The manner of writing is individual and characteristic to every writer. The style of handwriting varies among every individual and the style of handwriting is unique and has its own personalized touch. Handwriting is a movement habit that is very strong and individual. Brien,1 stated that it is a mixture of what we have been taught and our personality. Hilton2 has reported that handwritings fall into two general groups; class and individual characteristics. Class characteristics are actually common characteristics such as basic type of handwriting, slope of writing, line position and word spacing and suggested that handwriting show variation resulting from such influences. The first published article on possibility of handwriting similarities within genetic relationships was on December 2, 1911 in the issue of Scientific American that reports an article by R. H. Chandler. Earlier in an issue of Knowledge, it was published describing Family Likenesses in Handwriting. The article illustrated cases which have some general similarity between genetically related family members, but the similarity is not so great that current and competent examiners would be easily deceived. Comments on this topic by other authors are rare, however. Even Osborn omitted it. Hedrick3 quoted that Munch reported the case about similarity in the writings of a mother and daughter. The questioned material was limited to three sets of initials. Since there were disparities between the questioned and admitted writings they were not considered consistent and they could not have been attributed to natural variations, if the examination and study was not fastidious. Muehlberger et al.,4 suggested that there is a lack of statistical data or any database concerning the specific handwriting characteristics and the occurrence frequency of combinations of particular handwriting characteristics, the identification of handwriting and the examination of questioned document becomes a more difficult task. The forensic document examiners tend to assign the probative values to specific handwriting characteristics and their combinations while the judgments are often based almost entirely on their experience and power recall. Handwriting identification is a scientific pursuit, statistical data concerning common handwritings characteristics among family members seems to offer assistance to document examiner to establish a link between writing and writer especially in cases pertaining to family dispute or in cases of anonymous letters.