The Georgia WWI Centennial Commission, as part of its mission to commemorate and honor the sacrifices of Georgians and their families during this centennial time, is assembling a comprehensive list of all identifiable Georgians who died in World War I. 

Thus far, more than 2,100 soldiers and sailors from Georgia have been included in this on-line database.  The listing is searchable by name, rank, county, city, date and cause of death.  It includes those killed in action, those that died of wounds, those that succumbed to infections, and those killed in accidents while serving in the military during the Great War.   The database is available on the Georgia Commission's website: www.ww1cc.org/ga through the link "Georgia Memorial Database."

"It is an essential aspect of honoring the sacrifices of those who died in service to their country to list their names so that all may read them and remember," said Dr. Billy Wells of the University of North Georgia, chairman of the Georgia WWI Centennial Commission.  "This is the fundamental purpose of this Georgia Memorial Database." 

UNG is one of only six senior military colleges in the nation and is designated as The Military College of Georgia. As such, UNG has taken a leading role in supporting the work of the Georgia WWI Centennial Commission.

The database builds upon those service personnel listed in the Georgia State Memorial Book published in 1921.  The book provided biographic information and photographs of some 1,200 Georgians, but under the racial practices prevalent at the time, listed no African-American soldiers.  Fortunately, other lists and sources do provide many of these missing African-American names, which in the current project are being consolidated into a single and comprehensive list of all who died in service.   

"One of the Commission's primary goals in its overall Centennial effort is to address this ignored and overlooked contribution of Black Georgians in this war," said Dr. Lamar Veatch, retired State Librarian and the Commission's coordinator for the project. 

Additional sources of casualty names include a list developed by the Georgia Department of Veterans Services that does include African-American service personnel and which now has been merged into the online database.  Additionally, many local county and city memorials and monuments throughout Georgia are inscribed with names, including those of African-American personnel who were left out of the published lists.   The work of collecting these names from local plaques and memorials and adding them to the database is ongoing and will be completed by the end of this WWI centennial period, Veatch said.