Tips for Using the Austrian-Hungarian Muster Rolls

As I wrote previously, I used the Austro-Hungarian muster rolls to create a database of soldiers from some of the villages in the Udbina area for the period 1821-1868.  The muster rolls are actually incredibly nice to work with; the handwriting is legible (even beautiful) with information in an easy to understand format.  It was clear that the AH empire wanted to keep good records of these men.

I wanted to share a few tips, based on my own experience, for those who look at the records.

(1) In a separate post, I have noted that there were a few different types of records.  My last point explains the different types of records you can find.

(2) Also, I have provided a separate post about reading the handwriting in the records.  It is beautiful handwriting, but it is Gothic German cursive.  Thankfully there are resources to help you learn how to read it.

(3) The military in the region was divided into 9 companies for most of the period (there was an interesting increase which I'll write about later).  Each company covered a set of villages.  As far as I can tell, the mapping between villages and companies were constant over the entire period.  For example, Kurjak (where some of my ancestors lived) was aways in the 5th company. (This company was also referred to as the "Udbina" company in the records.)   It is also the case that most of the records have the company listed in a way that makes it easy to find.

It is also that a lot of the records will include individuals from all records, but the information is sorted by company (i.e., it gives the information for the 1st company and then the second company, etc.).

So if you are looking for records for a particular village, a good first step is to figure out which company the village is assigned to. This will help you scan through the records more quickly as you search for records.

(4) The records look a bit like excel sheets with each row representing a soldier the columns providing different information about the men.  Here's an example:

Not all of the documents have the same information, but many of the sheets give some combination of the information given below.  When this information is given, it often (though not always) appears in the following order:

• Company # (German: "Compaigne")

• Date that the record was filled out

• Company Name (German: "Compaigne")

• Rank or position (German: "Charge")

• Village 

• House number (i.e., address) (German: "Haus No.")

• Name (German: "Namen")

• Age (German: Jahr Alt) OR Birthyear 
• In the earlier years they tend to give age.  Later on they primarily give birth year.

• Religion (2 columns-wide) (German: "Religion")
• Catholic (German: "Katholisch")
• Orthodox (German: "gr: n: un:". this is really short for Greek Orthodox, but that is misleading; in this region they are al Serbian Orthodox.  They use Greek Orthodox for all Orthodox soldiers without differentiating by national church identities.) 

• Marital Status (2 columns-wide) (German: Stand = Status -- for martial status)
• Single (German: "Ledig")
• Married (German: "Verheiratet")

• Has Children (2 columns-wide) (German: "Haben Kinder")
• Males (German: "Männlich")
• Females (German: "Weiblich")

• Measurements (Sometimes 1 column, sometimes 3 columns) (German: "Maass")
• Feet (German: "Schuh")
• Inches (German: "Zoll")
• 1/10 of inch units (this is the 3rd one that is sometimes included)

• Years in Army

• Year they joined the army

Those are the suggestions that come to mind now.  I definitely don't want to intimidate anyone from using these records.  I didn't understand German when I started (and still don't). But the records are done in a relatively uniform way making them manageable to work with once you have started.