Military parish registers

The regiments, garrisons, military hospitals, and other military institutions belonged to proper military parishes, garrison parishes, and the higher military clerical administration (Militaersuperiorate, Apostolisches Feldvikariat), outside the "civilian" Roman Catholic church administration. All these parishes, like their civilian counterparts, registered baptisms, marriages, and deaths in "metric books".

We've compiled a list of microfilm rolls which contain church records for units stationed in Bohemia, Moravia & Silesia. This list has been sorted by locality. If you know the regiment in which your ancestor served, you can search the holdings of the Family History Library for additional military church records for that specific unit.

The Austrian Military Church Records Directory 1740-1922 identifies where military parishes were stationed or garrisoned. This index also shows the dates of available records. The Austrian Military Church Records Directory 1740-1922 is available on microfilm through the Family History Library in Salt Lake City.

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 Military register   (War Archive in Vienna, German language)

This is an example of a death record from the military parish book of the 20th infantry regiment. It shows that Kašpar Malohlava died on 31 January 1805 in Ludwinow (Poland). He served in the Hauptman Marquiera company as an ordinary soldier (Gemeiner), he was Catholic, married, 48 years old. Emaciation (abzehrung) is noted as the cause of death.

WHY were they collected? Evidence of births, baptisms, marriages, and deaths
WHEN were they collected?  1633 –1938 (Only a very few go back to the 17th century, some are preserved from the 18th century, but a complete set exists only for the period 1815-1920)
WHO collected the records? Military parishes
WHAT information can be found? Surname, first name, data & place of event, religion, civilian profession
In which ARCHIVES are they held?

War Archive in Vienna (years of birth 1790 - 1864); Military History Archive in Prague (years of birth 1865-1900)

In which archive FILES can they be found? Militärische Grundbuchsevidenz (GB)
LANGUAGE of records German
AVAILABILITY Well preserved, except years of birth 1887-1900
What must be KNOWN before getting started? The main group is filed by unit or garrison. To search for a specific entry, one has to know the military unit (regiment). To help identify the regiment into which a person was conscripted, we prepared a recruitment locality index.
Czech expression Vojenská matrika (Vojenské matriky)
German expression Militärmatriken (Matr)

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