Firefighters Genealogy 911 - Going Beyond Photos

In a recent blog post Susan Farrell Bankhead wrote about a request from her firefighter son.  He wanted to know whether genealogists could help locate photos of fallen firefighters so that they could be properly honored and remembered.  I hope you'll read Susan's post and consider joining in the effort to help.

I learned about the call to action thanks to Randy Seaver's Geneamusings Blog.  I want to acknowledge Randy for spreading the word and doing such a great job of bringing important things to our attention.

After reading this post I thought wouldn't it be great if genealogists took this a step further?  Not all of us are going to be able to help out with the Los Angeles firefighters.  But wouldn't it be great if we helped honor those that have fallen in our local communities?

We could help locate photos just as in this request.  Or we could take it a step further and do some genealogical research on the fallen heroes.  That would be a wonderful addition to a fire station's archives and history.  And what a tremendous gift it would be for the families left behind.

So I'd like to ask you, or perhaps your local genealogical societies, to reach out to fire stations in your area and see if you can contribute to honoring and preserving the memories of lost firefighters near you.


Photo Credit: "Knoxville Firefighters Memorial" photo by Joelk75 used under the creative commons license