When someone has died, it is nice if there are places where you can remember the person. That does not always have to be in a physical place. The coronavirus ensures that many burials take place in a small group. There are many condolence websites online that help with this. We explain a few for you.
Nowadays we see more and more services appear to commemorate someone online. Sometimes free, sometimes we have to pay for it. But whatever the approach is; It is nice to know that we can create an online place where we can visit someone if we are having a hard time. The following possibilities arise.
It may not seem like the place to remember at first glance, but it is, at least if the person in question had an active Facebook profile. It actually makes sense: people share a lot on Facebook. There are photos, stories, messages about holidays, birthdays, you name it. Such a Facebook profile is actually a wonderful overview of (a number of years in) the life that the person in question has led.
Facebook is also realizing this and that is why the service has been offering to convert profiles into memorial pages for years. When a page gets commemorative status, it comes In memory of next to the name so that everyone can see that this is no ordinary profile page. Depending on the privacy settings, family and friends can leave messages, and we see that this happens a lot on important days such as holidays, anniversary or birthday.
To give an account a memorial status, Facebook must be notified of the death of the person in question. The easiest way to do this is in the search field in Facebook memorial status typing in.
Condoleance.nl
Remembrance (often) begins when a loved one dies. If you’re looking for a way to publicize this and give friends, family and acquaintances the opportunity to share memories (without turning it into a long memorial page), an online condolence register is often a good way to do that. to do. It gives people the opportunity to share their thoughts, and for the immediate surviving relative (s) it is often comforting to read all those messages and memories.
The site we recommend in this case is condolences.nl. This site has both a national register (for famous Dutch people and people who died in disasters or crimes that have affected the entire country) and a private register, intended for everyone for whom you want to open a register.
Creating such a register is very simple. Click on the site Now create a new register yourself and fill in all relevant information: from date of birth and death, to the name, known statements and other information about the deceased. A register will remain for two months, after which it will be taken offline (but you can then download it or have it printed).
Herdenkenwij.nl
A condolence register is a wonderful way to remember someone, but it is usually temporary in nature. We can well imagine that you are looking for a more permanent page. We say directly: on the internet, of course, remains a relative concept, but there are many sites that offer you the opportunity to create a memorial page.
One we find beautifully designed is Herdenkenwij.nl. For the memorial pages on this site you can apply beautiful layouts yourself, in which the information is clearly arranged, so that a real online profile of someone is created that is beautiful to view and whose navigation is very user-friendly. You do not need internet knowledge to organize such a page, which is done using a – according to the makers – user-friendly content management system.
The only disadvantage? Herdenkenwij.nl is not free. We have tried to find out the price, but this information is not provided because accounts are only created in conjunction with a funeral director. So there are probably monthly costs involved. However, this platform is so beautifully designed that we thought it was too good not to include it in this overview.
I miss you
Would you like to create a memorial page, but you do not want to pay for it, then the site I miss you of the Evangelical Broadcasting also a wonderful place to do that. This site offers a lot of useful information about grieving and how to deal with missing loved ones, but also offers the opportunity to create a monument for someone you miss.
Creating such a monument is very simple. Click at the top Monument and then on Make a monument. The site will then guide you step by step through the process, where you can add photos and quotes and any other information you want to share about that person. When you have created the monument, others can respond to it and light a candle for the person in question (later in this article we also discuss services with online candles).
The site does not say how long the monuments will remain in the air, but given that we can browse monuments back to 2014 (when the site was launched), you can assume that the monument will last until the EO ever decides to use the site not to continue (something we can’t imagine).
Memori.nl
If you want to have a memorial page for a longer period of time, but you don’t want to do that via the EO, then Memori.nl a wonderful alternative. Just like Herdenkenwij.nl, this site has a very nice design and makes it very easy to make a memorial page for someone.
You can choose a main photo on the site (and of course many other photos) and add a segment for the funeral card, reactions, statements of the deceased, poems and so on. That way you can arrange the page as you wish.
Creating a page is free, but after three months it is basically taken offline. If you pay a one-off amount of 49 euros, the page will remain online forever (we keep repeating: remember that there is always a relative term on the internet). That is of course quite a lot of money, but a one-off payment appeals to us much more than a monthly one.
Wenskaarsje.nl
When we remember someone in the “real world”, we often do that by burning a candle for the person in question. This is possible after a death, on special days, but also just when we miss someone. Of course, it is not quite the same, but burning a candle online can also provide comfort.
A nice site for that Wenskaarsje.nl. On this site you can light a candle “digitally” for a person (and that does not only have to be for a deceased person). When you light such a candle, an animation is shown of a candle with a flaming flame. You can not respond to the candle, it is really for yourself (although you can share the candle via social media).
The digital candle stays on for 24 hours, after which it goes out. If you find that annoying, you can opt for an eternal candle that burns as long as you pay five euros per month. That sounds very commercial, but the five euros in reality is a donation for, among others, the Orphan Happy Foundation, which is committed to making wishes come true from children who have lost a parent at a young age.
Mijnkerk.nl/kaarsjes/
We love the concept of Wishing Candle, but we can also imagine that you don’t mind paying to keep the candle burning (no matter how good the goal is donated to).
Fortunately, there are also alternatives that are completely free. A good example of this is the candles that you can light on Mijnkerk.nl. Contrary to what the name of this site suggests, candle burning is not reserved for people who believe in God, on the contrary, this site promotes the fact that everyone can get there with their emotions. Admittedly, the candles that you can burn on this site are slightly less beautifully designed – they are pictures rather than small animations. But let’s be realistic; it remains a virtual representation of an emotion anyway, it is more important that there is a place than what it looks like.
The beauty of this site is also that you don’t even have to leave an email address, so it can be completely anonymous (you can no longer edit your candle afterwards). The “lighting” of the candle is free and in principle it will never be removed.
Own blog
The online remembrance solutions we mentioned in this article mainly focus on third party services. But of course you are not limited to what others have come up for you. It is very well possible to create a website for the person you would like to live on digitally. Finally, we will look at that.
You can build a site yourself using a package such as WordPress or Joomla, but if you haven’t eaten cheese with it, it is good to know that you can also easily use a service like Blogger can use for. Unlike Facebook, for example, you don’t create a profile where the owner of the platform determines the content; you determine that content yourself. You can customize titles, organize the website / blog completely as you want, apply a template to customize the look, you name it.
This way you can easily set up a memorial page where you have full control over what is on it, who can and may see this page, but you can also easily attach your own url, so that you really have your own memorial page. (how that works is explained in the Blogger manual).
.