unclassifiable fingerprints issue - pls help!

[celticsfan]

My wife & I submitted our N400 on 9/8/09. We went for our fingerprints and mine were accepted but she was asked to come back for a second time. She went for the fingerprints a second time - no problem was noted by the person taking the prints.

We just received a notice that her prints were found to be "unclassifiable" twice and that we would need to submit police clearances for each place we have lived for 5 years. They indicate a preference for the state report if available over a local police dept report.
My questions are:
1) What is a State report and how do we obtain it?
2) Typically how long would this police clearance take? In the past 5 yrs we have lived in CA, TX and now in MD.
3) are there any charges?

Also, we applied for a name change for my wife in the N400. Her GC is in her maiden name as her passport had not been changed at that point. Her SSN was allowed to be her married name and therefore driving license is also in her married name. In the N400, we requested her name change to her married name so it is consistent. We were not asked to submit any documents and so we didnt. Could this be the reason for the fingerprint issue? If yes, how does one rectify this?

thanks for any help.

[celticsfan]

its just been a few days since i posted my question and since then have made some progress so i will post some of the answers in case it is helpful to anyone else.

1) What is a State report and how do we obtain it?
a state report is also known as background check/ good conduct cert/ police clearance certificate or letter. your state's website should have a fingerprinting section aka records division. here, they specify the procedure to get the cert.

in MD, the fastest way (imo), is to go to CJIS in baltimore (no appt reqd) and get the fp taken. they mail you the cert in ~ 10 business days.

to get out of state police clearance, get the fp on the FD-258 card which is available at the place where the local state police dept does fp. mail this with the payment and the USCIS letter asking for police clearance to the state's police dept from which you need the clearance.

2) Typically how long would this police clearance take? In the past 5 yrs we have lived in CA, TX and now in MD.

i spoke to TX Dept of safety and CA DoJ and both said they would process in 10 business days. i sent priority mail SASE along so i would get it sooner.

3) are there any charges?
MD: $38
CA: $ 32
TX: $15

as for my wife's name change, we will have to wait and see. she spoke to the USCIS help line and they said to go for the interview with all the docs and state your case. even if docs are not yet available, we were asked not to postpone the interview appt. some of her fingerprints seem to have 'worn out' through excessive scrubbing/washing -thats what the tech told her. when she did the fp for the gc there was absolutely no problem so this is something recent. the unclassifiable may be because her fp (now) - since they are so worn out - are not matching her gc prints on all the counts required by the software to deem it as a match. this is all pure inference... i have no clue why in reality her's are unclassifiable. all this means is extra expense, more frustration, a longer wait, more time in limbo. ah well.