Bavaria (Bayern) Military Records



The Bavarian Army was the army of the Electorate (1682–1806) and then Kingdom (1806–1919) of Bavaria. It existed from 1682 as the standing army of Bavaria until the merger of the military sovereignty (Wehrhoheit) of Bavaria into that of the German State in 1919. The Bavarian army was never comparable to the armies of the Great Powers of the 19th century, but it did provide the Wittelsbach dynasty with sufficient scope of action, in the context of effective alliance politics, to transform Bavaria from a territorially-disjointed small state to the second-largest state of the German Empire after Prussia. Go to Wikipedia for more information on this topic.

Possible Sources
Military Records can be very valuable when gathering genealogy information. Often they provide birth dates, places of birth and the name of the soldiers parents. Occasionally the spouses name and the number of their children is included.


 * Here is a link to the Bavarian Military History from 1805-1815. Listed are regiments, officers and other military leaders: Prussian Army of the Napoleonic Wars, 1805 - 1815
 * WWI 1914-1918 Bavaria Military Rosters can be accessed on Ancestry.com
 * My Heritage has a large data base of military records. ($)
 * Some of the Bavarian Military Records are on microfilm. They are listed in the FamilySearch Library Catalog Scan down and click on the one that interests you.The icon to the left indicates what format it is in and clicking on it will tell you where it can be viewed. Eventually they will be available online.
 * There are some military records microfilmed and the information about these films is available in theFamilySearch Catalog