I am looking for an officer, NCO or private soldier (period 1740–1820)

For the period stretching from 1740 to 1820 you first need to identify the military unit (regiment, corps or branch) in which the person you are researching served. Prior to the introduction of conscription in 1868, the military did not on a regular basis record the (exact) date of birth of a soldier or the names of the soldier’s parents.

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Up until 1820 the individual regiments, corps etc. kept “Musterlisten” (muster rolls) which are subdivided into companies (infantry) and squadrons (cavalry).

The muster rolls only survive from the 1740s onwards and are available online. These are mere “snapshots” and do not provide a full record of a common soldier’s military career.

An (incomplete) alphabetical index of officers listed in the muster rolls is available online.

There is no index for non-commissioned officers and private soldiers.

For the period following the implementation in 1781 of the “Konskriptions- und Werbbezirksystem”, a ‘precursor’ to universal conscription introduced in 1868, a list of the individual recruiting districts for the infantry is useful to identify the regiment (“Werbbezirksregiment”) into which the conscripts of a specific area may have been drafted.

“Conduitelisten” for officers, introduced in 1761, only survive from the 1820s onwards. For earlier periods research on officers will therefore chiefly draw on the written records of the Hofkriegsrat, the central military authority of the Habsburg Monarchy.

The registers and indices of the Hofkriegsrat are accessible online (up to 1768).

For research on officers you may also consult:

As a starting point for your research on officers, regimental chaplains, military officials etc. the Militärschematismus, published annually from 1791 (index of names only from 1818) is de rigueur.

There is a valuable history of the branches and regiments of the Imperial-Royal and Imperial and Royal (Austro-Hungarian) army from 1618 onwards by Alphons Freiherr von Wrede, Geschichte der k. u. k. Wehrmacht, 5 vols. (Vienna 1898–1905, incomplete). For a separate index of the regimental proprietors, regimental commanders and senior officers killed in combat see here (PDF, 317 KB).