Austria, Carinthia, Military Personnel Records - FamilySearch Historical Records

What is in This Collection?
The collection consists of Austrian personnel records giving details on the soldier's birth, enlistment, and military service. The records will include the provinces of Austria as well as areas formerly part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, primarily Hungary, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, and the Czech Republic. Any additional records will be added as they are completed. The original records are housed in the Österreichisches Staatsarchiv, Vienna.

In 1820, the regimental muster rolls (musterlisten), which contained basic information for each soldier, were replaced by formatted sheets (grundbuchsblatt) bound into books as a register (grundbuecher), then handled as loose sheets (grundbuchsblaetter). The documented registers were kept by the regiments and periodically sent to the central authority, the War Council Ministry of War, in Vienna for preservation.

The Austrian military system requires that all military personnel be registered with all personal and related information, which is kept in a personal file when the person is enlisted. Men exempt from military service included clergy, nobility, certain government officials, and workers employed in mining, iron production, and necessary agricultural occupations.

Reading These Records
These records are written in German. For help reading these German records see the following guides:
 * German Language and Languages
 * German Genealogical Word List
 * Germany Handwriting
 * FamilySearch Learning Center videos:
 * Reading German Handwritten Records

What Can These Records Tell Me?
The following information may be found in these records:


 * Name of soldier or officer
 * Date of birth
 * Place of birth
 * Religion


 * Occupation
 * Name of regiment
 * Date of service

How Do I Search This Collection?
Before searching this collection, it is helpful to know:
 * Name of the person
 * Approximate date of the event

How Do I Analyze the Results?
Compare each result from your search with what you know to determine if there is a match. This may require viewing multiple records or images. Keep track of your research in a research log.

What Do I Do Next?
Whenever possible, view the original records to verify the information and to find additional information that might not be reported. These pieces of information can lead you to additional records and family members. Remember that there may be more than one person in the records with the same name as your ancestor and that your ancestor may have used nicknames or different names at different times.

I Found the Person I Was Looking For, What Now?

 * Use the age in the record to find an approximate birth year
 * Use the soldier's age and location of the military unit to find his family in census, church, and land records
 * Use the county code and the certificate number to obtain a copy of the original death certificate from the county
 * Use the parents’ places of origin to find former residences and establish a migration pattern for the family
 * Use the couple’s marriage date and place to find records of their children
 * Use the burial place to help you identify their migration pattern
 * Use the surname to compile baptism entries for each child and sort them into families based on the names of the parents
 * Continue to search the index and records to identify children, siblings, parents, and other relatives who may have served in the same unit or a nearby unit
 * Search the records of nearby military units
 * Repeat this process with additional family members found to find more generations of the family

I Can’t Find the Person I’m Looking For, What Now?

 * Consult the Austria Record Finder to find other records
 * Try viewing the original record to see if there were errors in the transcription of the name, age, residence, etc
 * Search the records of nearby localities (or military units, counties, parishes, etc.)
 * Standard spelling of names typically did not exist during the periods our ancestors lived in. Try variations of your ancestor’s name while searching the index or browsing through images.
 * Remember that sometimes individuals went by nicknames or alternated between using first and middle names
 * Look for an index. There are often indexes at the beginning of each volume. In addition local genealogical and historical societies often have indexes to local records

Research Helps
The following articles will help you in your research for your family in Austria.
 * Research Tips and Strategies
 * Austria Record Finder

Citing This Collection
Citations help you keep track of places you have searched and sources you have found. Identifying your sources helps others find the records you used.