March 15, 2001


Bereaving in perpetuity online
MemorialsOnline: Monument including guest book can be had for $149


Jill Vardy
Financial Post
OTTAWA - Bereaved relatives wanting to create a lasting shrine to their loved ones can now buy a permanent online memorial.

For $149, relatives can have a Web page monument to the deceased with photos, tributes, biographical details, information about donation requests, an online guest book and links to grief support resources.

The tribute stays on the Web site (www.memorialsonline.com) "in perpetuity," said Randy Souliers, vice-president of marketing for MemorialsOnline, based in St. John's, Nfld.

MemorialsOnline.com Inc. yesterday signed a deal with the Canadian Independent Group of Funeral Homes to offer the service through 529 funeral homes.

"We're providing the funeral homes with brochures and samples so that families when planning funerals can see what our services entail," Mr. Souliers said.

"When you go into our site you're assigned a user name and password. You build a complete memorial, which is activated once payment has been received. We verify the information to make sure things are proper and within 24 hours we make it live."

The deal with the CIGFH, which represents a quarter of Canada's funeral operators, also allows member funeral homes to create their own business-card Web pages and offer information about their locations through the MemorialsOnline Web site.

The company has donated online memorial pages for Adam Wall, A.J. Sullivan and Jesse Elliott, the three teenage boys who drowned while playing on the ice off Pouch Cove, Nfld., last week.

"In the past two days we've had a quarter of a million hits on the site," Mr. Souliers said. "It's phenomenal, the number of people who have visited."

Robert Hiscock, president of MemorialsOnline, got the idea for online tributes after his 36-year-old brother died suddenly in Nova Scotia.

"We were running a Web development company in St. John's at the time," Mr. Souliers said. "When Rob got back from his brother's funeral, he decided to put up a Web site in honour of his brother. It helped him through his grieving process and he thought maybe other people would find it helpful, too."

John Laframboise, president of the CIGFH, said MemorialsOnline's services "will be of assistance to the bereaved. This relationship will also assist our members in promoting their businesses online."

MemorialsOnline.com Inc. also operates a sister Web site called ObitOnline.com, which has collected and put on the Web more than 100,000 obituary notices from North American newspapers. The resource is intended for professional and amateur genealogists.

jvardy@nationalpost.com