What are Muster Rolls and How Do You Recognize Them?
Muster rolls are official lists of military or naval personnel attached to a unit at a specific date. They were created for administrative purposes such as pay, accountability, and strength reporting. These records often include names, ranks, unit designations, and sometimes additional details like enlistment dates or status.
Muster Rolls are typically arranged in tabular format, and an entry will often include:
- Name
- Rank
- Unit or ship
- Date of muster
- Status (present, absent, sick, detached)
- Enlistment details
- Birthplace
- Demographic information (appearance, religion, age, race or ethnicity)
Keywords
Here is a list of common terms that might be found in muster rolls in these languages:
English | Name | Rank | Unit | Date | Status | Remarks |
French | Nom | Grade | Unité | Date | Statut | Remarques |
German | Name | Dienstgrad | Einheit | Datum | Status | Bemerkungen |
Spanish | Nombre | Rango | Unidad | Fecha | Estado | Observaciones |
Italian | Nome | Grado | Unità | Data | Stato | Osservazioni |
Dutch | Naam | Rang | Eenheid | Datum | Status | Opmerkingen |
Portuguese | Nome | Posto | Unidade | Data | Estado | Observações |
Russian | Имя | Ранг | Подразделение | Дата | Статус | Замечания |
Turkish | Ad | Rütbe | Birlik | Tarih | Durum | Notlar |
Arabic | الاسم | الرتبة | الوحدة | التاريخ | الحالة | ملاحظات |
Natural Group
Muster rolls are most often grouped in bound volumes in archives. When digitizing muster rolls, a single volume should be captured as one digital folder.
Descriptive Metadata
1. Date: Enter the year of the muster.
2. Locality: Enter the city where the muster was taken.
3. Creator: Enter the military unit that took the muster.
4. Volume: Enter the volume designation code assigned to the book by the archive.
5. Title: Using the language of the records, enter the respective title for the entire register.
6. Custodian Reference ID: These records don’t typically have a custodian reference ID. Enter a single hyphen (-) to indicate no such ID exists. If these records are being captured at an archive, and the archive applied a reference ID to each volume, then enter the ID in the format relevant to the archive.