In a message dated 3/12/2006 4:12:52 PM Mountain Standard Time, MAMME53196@aol.com writes: Karen, Are the military records in English. thank you Mary Mary, ALL records on film at the LDS are in the original langauge in which they were written. That includes civil, military and church records from any of the former Austrian Lands. The LDS filmed the originals of the old military records. There are over 2600 titles in the catalog now and each one has from 1-200 or more separate films under it. They also have more than 1000 films of military records that are still not in the catalog.. Translating all of that would be a lifetime task for all of Venna!! They go back to the 1760s and up to about 1870 with a few going to 1885. Military church books (deaths, marriages, births concerning active duty soldiers) go up to 1918-1920. They are mostly in German. Some later ones (dated after 1868 and up to WW I) may be in German plus Hungarian and Czech or Polish. I have some examples of military passbooks that are only in Hungarian with section of instructions for reporting in the case of war in Hungarian and German. Others have the same format with both languages in the "boxes". In general the passbooks carry the same data that is on a soldier's "Grundbuchblätter" or individual record with the addition of notations when the soldier reported for reserve duty after he went off active duty. Passbooks were not used until after 1868 -- maybe not until 1883 or so. Does anyone have a Militär-Pass that is older than 1883?? The Surnames on military records and passbooks are always the first hand written item and they are written very clearly. The rest of the handwriting is smaller and a bit harder to read. So not only are the records in German, they are hand written in old german script which does not resemble our own handwriting very much. But that should not deter anyone from research with old records of any kind. A copy of a document that is handwritten is not difficult to get translated by simply putting a query to the list when you have a hard copy to mail or a scanned copy to Email. It is easy to save digital copies of LDS films. Every FHC has a computer that permits viewing a film on screen and allows you to copy records to a CD or to print them. The formats of some (the headers for each "box"of information) military records have been translated by various research organizations and individuals. Some have been published on the Internet. Others are available in an old conference Syllabus at the CGSI library in St,. Paul or from anyone who may have one from other souces. There may be some list members who have copies of the translated documents I distributed at various conferences in St. Paul, Minneapolis, Chicago, Houston, Lincoln, Regina (Saskatchewan) and elsewhere. There are also the articles I wrote for the EEGS journal that carry sample documents and tell what they contain. The three articles were published in Winter of 2002 and spring and winter of 2003. They may still have some copies you can buy at $5 per issue or contact me off list for other options. The articles start with recruiting rules so researchers can determine if and when an ancestor or one of his ancestors may have served. The second is how to select the right regiment and the LDS resources to assist you. The third is all the types of military records at the LDS and how to access a given type easily. The CGSI newsletter has also consitently published examples of various Czech documents with explanation. I believe I have seen some very good websites with lists of Czech words from various Czech records with their translations. Elaine Maddox may be able to refer the lest to one or more of those sites with their sample documents. Again, with all the help that is available for understanding these documents all the novice researcher needs to to understand all of the possible spellings of an ancestral name....to recognize it or a sound-alike in an old record. Sound-alikes can be pretty strange. In the tax rolls of 1654 my ancestral Grosam surname was "Grausamb". Latter it was variously spelled with 2 "s" or manybe 2 "m" at the end. If I had not gotten my great grandfather's military record I still would not know where he was born. Karen