Half affiliation

What is half filiation?

The half parentage is the detailed description of the physical features of a living or deceased individual, generally used for the identification of missing persons or for use in criminal police records.

The concept of half parentage was born around the last two decades of the 19th century, as a derivation of the procedures developed by Alphonse Bertillon, a French criminalist pioneer in the anthropometric description of subjects of police interest in the city of Paris.

Half-affiliation is often confused with two tools similar descriptive: the Spoken portrait and the anthropometric signage (from French signalement anthropométrique), also widely used in the context of criminology and forensic sciences for the description of suspects or disappeared.

Anthropometric marking consists of taking exact measurements of the head, arms, fingers and both legs of all criminals who are detained by the police forces, saving said data in the records for their timely consultation..

The Spoken portrait is the description of the main facial features of the suspects, with which the police officers were able to obtain an outline for their rapid recognition.

How do you describe the half parentage of a person?

The average affiliation of a person is obtained from the description of the set of physical characteristics that define it.

Traits such as complexion, skin color, characteristics of the face, hair and ears, blood type, height and weight, the presence of scars, tattoos, prosthetics, etc. are used. Data such as age, gender, race, appearance, accent when speaking, among others, are also taken into account..

In order to make a description as accurate as possible, it is often necessary to have that person in view or, otherwise, to have had the opportunity to observe them carefully for a while, in order to be able to remember the complete set of their features.

Aspects necessary to describe the half parentage

• General or bodily somatic

The main aspects such as the age approximate or exact, the sex (due to its visible secondary characteristics; the presence or absence of breasts, for example), the height or the size and the race.

Attention is also paid to body mass or weight, either exact or inferred, and to the texture or complexion (lean, stocky, obese, athletic), including the position and the skin color (white, brunette or black).

Among other aspects that are taken into account are the appearance (both physical and psychological), the dress code and the Way of talking (both the language, the accent and the dialect as well as the gesticulation).

Traits such as the presence of tattoos (with its location, size, motif and color as exact as possible), of scars (linear, large or small, surgical, hypertrophic, or keloid), moles, trademarks cutaneous due to occupation, among others.

• Somatic particular or specific

The media affiliation also includes more precise data on some remarkable and easily recognizable parts of the body, especially those associated with the head and face..

• Face shape: if it is asymmetric, elongated, rounded, square, oval or pear-shaped
• Appearance of facial skin: if it is smooth, wrinkled, burned, freckled, stained, with scars, with acne, etc..
• Forehead- Attention is paid to where the hair is born, how tall and how long it is
• The hair: described according to its color (albino, brown, blond, black, reddish, painted), its quantity (scarce, abundant, medium), its shape (straight, wavy, frizzy, woolly, curly), its length (short, medium , long) and the way it is combed (gathered, to the side, in the middle, loose). It stands out if there is total or partial baldness and the way in which it is presented.
• Eyebrows: they are described according to the position with respect to the eyes, the nose and the forehead (separate, medium, united) and the amount of hair they have (thick, medium or sparse). Attention is also paid to their implantation site, their height and their shape (whether they are arched, straight, long, short, etc.).
• The eyes: they are described according to their size (small, medium or large), according to their shape (bulging, round, united, elongated, oblique), according to their color (black, brown, gray, green, blue), according to the eyelashes (shape, length and quantity) and according to some sign (lack of an eye, deviation of an eye, drooping eyelids, prosthesis).
• Nose: It is described according to its frontal view (if it is thin, medium or wide), lateral or in profile (concave, straight, convex or raised) and according to the shape of its base (raised, fallen, low or horizontal). Particularities such as deviation, surgeries and "flattening" are also taken into account..

• Mouth: described according to their size (small, medium or large), according to the thickness of the lips (thin, thick or medium), according to the corners (low, horizontal, ascending, symmetrical or asymmetric, crooked) and according to some particularity (prominence of either of the two lips, presence of cleft lip, surgeries, perforations, etc.).
• Chin: Described according to shape (square, sharp, bilocated or dimpled) and profile (if it comes out, if it is medium or if it is incoming).
• The neck: data such as length (long, short or medium), thickness (thin, thick or medium) and the presence of some particularity (goiter, Adam's apple, etc.) are taken into account..
• Facial hairs: the presence or absence of facial hairs (mustaches or beard) is also described and the quantity (hairless, scarce, medium or abundant), the length (long, short, medium or shaved) and the style are distinguished.
• Ears: attention is paid to the size (if they are small, medium or large), to the position (exits, medium or attached) and to the presence of any special detail (hairs, piercings, shape of the lobe, etc.).
• Denture: if it is natural, artificial or mixed; if it has any special feature such as color, the shape of the teeth or their position, the presence of corrective appliances, among others.

Example of half filiation

As an example of a description of half parentage we will use the famous American fraud and impostor Frank Abagnale Jr., whose life inspired the film Catch Me If You Can (by its title in English Catch Me if You Can) from 2002, directed by Steven Spielberg and produced by Walter F. Parkes.

Frank Abagnale Jr. is known for having posed for different positions (pilot, doctor, lawyer) and having made large amounts of money using different methods before his 20th birthday, a fact that gave him such experience that shortly after he introduced it to the FBI as such a fraud advisor.

The detailed physical description (half parentage) of this subject is roughly the following:

• Name: Frank William Abagnale Jr.
• Age: 72 years
• Gender: male
• Height: 1.78 m
• Weight: 85 kg
• Build: robust
• Skin color: white, slightly wrinkled
• Face shape: oval
• Hair: frontal baldness, straight hair, completely gray
• Face: reddish skin; large, prominent and broad forehead; long eyebrows with a moderate amount of hair, with a horizontal direction and regular arcing, with medium implantation and parting; small brown eyes slightly droopy, with sparse, short eyelashes; nose thick and elongated, with a convex profile and a base of medium width; Medium-sized mouth, with thin lips (the upper one thinner than the lower one) and horizontal corners. Shaved beard and mustaches. Small lump or growth on the cheek, next to the right side of the nose
• Chin: sharp and protruding profile
• Neck: thick and short
• Ears: large with attached lobes
• Denture: uniform white

References

1. López, L. (2006). Policemen, gendarmes et signalement descriptif. Representations, apprenticeships et pratiques d'une nouvelle technique de police judiciaire, en France à la Belle Époque. Crime, Histoire & Sociétés / Crime, History & Societies, 10 (1), 51-76.
2. Merriam-Webster. (n.d.). Signalment. In Merriam-Webster.com dictionary. Retrieved March 27, 2021, fde merriam-webster.com
3. Pierre Piazza. Alphonse Bertillon and the Identification of Persons (1880-1914), Musée Criminocorpus published on Aug. 26, 2016, consulted on March 28, 2021. Permalink: de criminocorpus.org