subject: Would You Pay Your Respects To The Dead Online? [print this page] Online memorial websites Virtually paying your respects
With all the negative press coverage recently about the Raol Moat tributes on Facebook, I've been looking into the recent phenomenon of Memorial Websites and why people choose to pay their respects online. One site I found was of interest to me, as it stood out from the rest. I spoke to its creator John Thornley.
John Thornley was very close to his Grandfather and was devastated when he passed away. John lived many miles from his original roots and, due to his service in the armed forces, very rarely visited his Grandfathers resting place. This distance did not stop John thinking about his Grandad however and John realised that in this modern world of families being geographically displaced our basic primeval instinct to properly honour our dead was being stifled. And so the idea for an online tribute website was born.
Whilst researching the idea John discovered that there were in fact websites in existence that allowed visitors to create online memorials however, in his own words;
I didnt find one site that I felt really captured the essence of what it is to remember a loved one online. They were pepper-potted with inappropriate adverts and they didnt treat the persons memory with the respect and reverence that every single person that has been loved and passed away deserves.
And so he created www.FriendsAtRest.com. Friends at Rest is a tribute website that allows visitors to create free memorials in order to remember their loved ones. Memorials can be as detailed or as sparse as the creator wants. A memorial can be created with just the persons name, however, a typical memorial consists of a picture of the person to whom the tribute relates, music, photo galleries, information about where the person lived and when they passed away. Friends At Rest makes it easy to spread the word about your memorial in several ways including via social network sites such as Twitter and Facebook. Friends and relatives can then visit your memorial and sign the remembrance book, give a gift, light a candle or contribute photos they might have. Over time tributes become online areas that record the life of the deceased and the thoughts of the people that they touched during their lifetimes.
John has gone to great lengths to make Friends At Rest a safe site. When asked about the possibility of someone coming along and abusing the site in some way John was very clear that this just would not happen. "Anyone can create a memorial but they must register first. All email addresses are verified. The person who creates the memorial has total control of anything that is contributed to their tribute. Also, all contributions are independently verified by site administrators to make sure that nothing inappropriate can be posted.
by: fiona davies
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