Dear Fellow JGenners,

It had been widely assumed that the military records of Galician
soldiers serving in the Austro-Hungarian Army were sent to the successor
states at the end of World War I and then lost. In fact, the War
Archives in Vienna has the following statement on its website.
"Galicia: Registration sheets of officers who joined the Polish army in
1918. Most of the registration sheets of draftees >from Galicia (Southern
Poland, Western Ukraine) has been destroyed (Centralne Archivwum
Wojskowe, PL-00910 Warszawa-Rembert=F3w)" from

http://oesta.gv.at/site/6413/default.aspx


Thus I was very surprised by Alex Feller's post on November 26, 2011,
which is as follows.

"The Family History Library has microfilms of military records for
various towns in Galicia >from the period of 1865- 1930. The originals
are located in fond 780 at the Central State Historical Archives in
Lviv, Ukraine. The link to this record group on the FHL website is

<https://www.familysearch.org/search/catalog/show?uri=3Dhttp%3A%2F%2Fcatalog-search-api%3A8080%2Fwww-catalogapi-webservice%2Fitem%2F1713234>

I found the above note >from Alex encouraging and have investigated the 8
films in the collection that is listed as corresponding to surnames
beginning with the letter F.

Here are my general conclusions:

(1) The film notes do not indicate what is covered by each film.

(2) Each film is organized in labeled sections, i.e. the labels are
contained on the film.

(3) Each labeled section is organized into unlabeled subsections
corresponding to the birth year of the conscript.

(4) Within these unlabeled subsections, the surnames are listed mostly
alphabetically.

(5) There may be multiple subsections for the same birth year scattered
among the films, sometimes these subsections adjoin.

(6) There does not appear to be any obvious order to the birth years.

(7) There are many WWI records.

(8) There are quite a few records out of place. There are even a few
records with surnames starting with letters other than F.

(9) The military records are heterogeneous and include at least the =
following:

Auskunftsbogen
Auszug aus dem Belebungsprotokolle
Dienstzettel
Entlassungsschein
Fehlkarte faulty card
Grundbuchblatt
Haupt-Grundbuchblatt
Konduiteliste
Kopfzettel
Landsturmevidenzblatt
Landsturmlegitimationsblatt
Persons- und MeldeNachweis
Schussblatt
Stammblatt
Strafprotokoll-Auszug
Testimonium mortis
Todten-schein
Unterabteilungs-Grundbuchblatt
Vormerkblatt
Vormerkblatt fuer die Qualifikationsbeschreibung
Vormerkblatt ueber Kranke in Heilanstatten

The following is specific information on the 8 films for surnames
beginning with F. Except where stated otherwise, all the subsections
correspond to surnames beginning with the letter F. Each subsection
corresponds to a particular birth year within which the surnames are
arranged more or less alphabetically. These subsections vary in length

from just a few records to many dozens.

Film 2449354
Sections 1-4 surnames beginning with U
Section 5 - 1885

Film 2448957
Section 1 - 1885, 1899
Section 2 - 1896, 1895, 1894, 1897, 1898, 1974, 1879, 1892,
1893, 1896
Section 3 - 1873, 1871, 1873, 1875, 1898, 1875, 1882, 1900

Film 2448958
Section 1 - 1890
Section 2 - 1871, 1891
Section 3 - 1876, 1892
Section 4 - 1870, 1887, 1896

Film 2448959
Section 1 - 1896
Section 2 - 1866, 1880, 1884, 1890
Section 3 - 1895, 1880, 1881
Section 4 - 1872, 1878, 1871, 1883, 1897

Film 2448960
Section 1 - 1886, 1906, 1897, 1887, 1897
Section 2 - 1886, 1868, 1886, 1886, 1891, 1893, 1869, 1876,
1878, 1888, 1889, 1877, 1888

Film 2448961
Section 1 - 1888
Section 2 - 1876, 1876, 1898
Section 3 - 1868, 1869, 1897, 1900, 1897, 1899, 1897, 1899,
1878, 1880, 1879, 1872, 1887, 1887
Section 4 - 1865, 1881

Film 2448962
Section 1 - 1881, 1894
Section 2 - 1874, 1883, 1898, 1883
Section 3 - 1873, 1877, 1884, 1895

Film 2448963
Section 1 - 1895
Section 2 - 1867, 1872, 1882, 1890, 1882
Section 3 - 1877, 1889, 1867
Section 4 - names beginning with C

My experience - I tried to find the military records of my
grandfather. I did not find them. I concluded that they might be
misfiled in one of the 8 films I examined fairly carefully or they might
be in a film that is listed as being for surnames other than those
beginning with the letter F. So to be sure to find your relative, I
think you have to look at all the records for all the letters to be
sure. This is a gigantic task. I spent 15 hours searching the 8 films
for the letter F.

Happy hunting,

Thomas Fischer Weiss
Newton, MA
USA
tfweiss@mit.edu

Researching:
FRENKEL (Buchach, Vienna); BUCHHALTER (Skalat); ENGEL (Vienna); FISCHER
(Hriskov, Schlan, Prague); FRAENKEL, FRUCHTER (Rozhnyatov, Vienna); KATZ
(Schlan); KLEPETAR (Jistebnice); MEISELS (Nadworna, Vienna); OLLOP
(Vienna); ORLIK (Pohor, Jistebnice, Benesov, Tabor); QUADRATSTEIN
(Vienna, Saarbrucken); VODICKA (Dobronitz, Jistebnice, Benesov, Tabor)