Muster Roll Years

Nathaniel Simon Notheisen

I had a question about finding the years for muster rolls. I was going to look for the year for this batch on an earlier record. Should I do this or just record no date, because this one isn't the first page in this batch.

https://www.familysearch.org/indexing/batch/2a2ce5ad-8552-4c8a-bfbc-569d91126b74

John Empoliti

Hi @Nathaniel Simon Notheisen

Bottom Line: You Ctrl+B (<Blank) the Military Date fields for all the soldiers on that roster because none of them has a military date by their name, and you cannot see the roster's first page that contains its "roster date" to use instead. The Indexer has already done this <Blank>ing correctly. But read on for why.

Why: Yes, you may, and you should look for the first page of the roll or roster on earlier reference images. See the instructions from the What to Remember About This Project Section. Below I cited some crucial guidance from it on Military Dates. The first bullet should say, "You may need to view the first page of the list (not record) to get the military date.

But in this case, the list/roster is so long that the first page is not among the five previous reference images, and no soldiers have a military date by their name, so for this batch, you are forced to Ctrl+B (<Blank>) the Military Day, Month and Year fields. You'll also find instructions in the Field Help (purple question mark) for the Military Day, Month, and Year fields. Click on a field to see the purple question mark.

• Some lists span multiple images. You may need to view the first page of the record (list) to get the military date.
• The date at the top of a roster or roll may be used for all entries as the military date if the entries don't contain their own individual military dates. If a day, month, or year is not given, it may have been recorded on one or more images prior to that one.

Nathaniel Simon Notheisen

Thanks so much, this really helps out.

John Empoliti

You're welcome.