Everything families ask us,
answered properly.

DiaryOftheDead is a memorial platform for preserving, sharing and discovering the lives of people who have died. A memorial here is called a diary: a page that holds a person's story, photographs, memories and tributes, and that keeps growing as family and friends add to it. Creating one is free, and it stays free, no trial, no subscription and no expiry.

Create a memorial diary·See a real memorial diary

Mostly for two reasons: to keep the memories that a funeral leaves scattered, in a condolence book, on different phones, in different countries, in one place, and to give people who could not travel a way to be part of it. On DiaryOftheDead those two are the same page: the condolence register stays with the memorial it belongs to, and a relative abroad can sign it from a phone a year later, when the cards have been put away.

What a digital memorial holds

Start with the person's name, a photograph if you have one, and the dates you know. On DiaryOftheDead you can add their story, memories, photographs and music afterwards, because a memorial is meant to be built over time rather than finished in one sitting. Nothing is published until you are ready to share it.

Create a memorial diary·Step by step

Yes, shared remembrance is what DiaryOftheDead is built around. Depending on the diary and its settings, people you invite can leave condolences, share memories, add photographs and light candles. The family keeps control of what appears.

Contributing to a memorial

Yes. A memorial on DiaryOftheDead is a web page, so it can be shared with anyone, anywhere, and it opens on a phone without installing anything. That matters most for the families this platform was built for, whose relatives are often spread across several countries.

Where families use DiaryOftheDead

Yes. A ceremony can be streamed from the diary so that relatives and friends who cannot travel can watch it live, and it can be scheduled in advance and kept private to the people you invite. Watching is free; the organiser's side of a stream may use DiaryOftheDead Coins.

Live ceremonies·About funeral livestreaming

Yes. DiaryOftheDead is a global platform, used by families in Nigeria, Ghana, South Africa, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Mexico and elsewhere, and the interface is available in ten languages including Yoruba, Igbo, Hausa, Arabic, Hindi and Chinese.

Country questions

A memorial app is a digital platform that lets people create, share and preserve memorials for loved ones who have died. Unlike a traditional obituary, which is written once, a memorial can keep growing through photographs, stories, memories, tributes and contributions from family and friends. DiaryOftheDead is one, on the web and on iOS and Android, and the app and the website show the same diaries.

Create a memorial diary·See a real memorial diary

No. DiaryOftheDead is designed as a global memorial platform. Families and friends can create and visit memorials wherever they live, and the interface is available in ten languages.

Yes. A memorial does not have to be created straight after a death. Families use them to preserve the life story of someone who died years, or generations, ago, often as a way of gathering the family's memories before they are lost. A DiaryOftheDead diary can be opened a decade after the funeral, and it keeps the dates and the photographs in one place.

Create a memorial diary

Public figures can have memorial pages where that is appropriate. Such a page can hold biographical information, memories, tributes and the parts of their public legacy that people want to remember. DiaryOftheDead remains the platform: pages about a person are created and maintained by the people who knew or documented them.

No. Creating a memorial diary on DiaryOftheDead is free and it stays free, with unlimited memories, the condolence register and live ceremonies, and no trial or subscription. Some optional extras exist, such as premium themes and the Signature Collection, and you never need them for a memorial to work.

Browse the themes·The Signature Collection

No. A memorial on DiaryOftheDead is a web page you can open in any browser, and it is also available as a mobile app for iOS and Android if you prefer one. Your relatives do not need an account to visit and read a memorial.

An online memorial is a digital space created to remember and celebrate the life of someone who has died, bringing together their biography, photographs, stories, memories and tributes so that family and friends can visit, contribute and share their remembrance. An example is DiaryOftheDead, where that space is called a memorial diary: a page for one person that holds their story, their photographs, their condolence register and the tributes people leave, and that keeps growing as more of them is remembered.

See a real memorial diary

You create one on DiaryOftheDead by making a memorial diary and adding information about your loved one. You can personalise it with their story, photographs, memories and other meaningful details, then share it with family and friends whenever you are ready.

Create a memorial diary·Step by step

Their name, a photograph, a biography, the important dates of their life, family stories, memories and tributes. There is no required set: on DiaryOftheDead many families begin with a name and a picture and add the rest over months, and that is usually the better way, because memories arrive when people are reminded of them.

See a real memorial diary

Yes. DiaryOftheDead is built around shared remembrance. Family and friends can take part by sharing memories, stories and tributes, depending on the permissions and features enabled on that memorial. The person who created it decides who can do what.

Yes. Send them the link to a DiaryOftheDead diary and they can read it immediately, wherever they are, which matters most when relatives live in different countries and cannot attend a funeral in person. They do not need an account to read it or to leave a condolence.

Yes. On DiaryOftheDead you choose who can see a diary and who can contribute to it, and you can change that later, so many families keep one private while they are gathering photographs and then open it when they are ready to share it. A private memorial is deliberately kept out of search results.

Yes, at any time, and as often as you like. A memorial is meant to change: on DiaryOftheDead you can correct a date, add a chapter of their life, attach music, or take something down that the family would rather not have online.

A digital memorial is an online representation of a person's life and legacy. It preserves photographs, stories, memories, biographies and tributes in a format that family and friends can visit, add to and share. DiaryOftheDead is built entirely around them: every diary is a digital memorial, and none of them expire.

See a real memorial diary

An obituary usually gives a formal announcement and a summary of someone's death and life. A digital memorial, such as the diaries on DiaryOftheDead, is much more interactive and ongoing: it can hold photographs, stories, memories and contributions from people who knew them, and it can keep growing long after the announcement has been read.

Online memorial vs obituary

Yes, and photographs are usually the first thing a family adds. They help preserve the moments and experiences of a life, and on DiaryOftheDead they can be grouped into albums and galleries as the family gathers more of them.

Yes. DiaryOftheDead lets a memorial act as a space for shared remembrance, where people can contribute tributes, memories and messages, and where the family can reply to the condolences they receive.

See a real memorial diary

Yes. Alongside photographs and written memories, a diary on DiaryOftheDead can hold films, music that meant something to the person, and voice recordings left by relatives, which many families find are the contributions they return to most.

A memorial diary is a digital record created to preserve the life, memories and legacy of someone who has died. It brings together their biography, photographs, stories, memories and tributes in one place, and it is the form a memorial takes on DiaryOftheDead.

Create a memorial diary·See a real memorial diary

It gives a family somewhere to keep memories beyond the funeral and the obituary. As more stories and photographs are added, a DiaryOftheDead diary becomes a continuing record not only of a person's life but of the people who remember them.

Yes. The platform is designed for shared remembrance, so appropriate family members and friends can take part in preserving the person's story, adding memories, photographs and tributes from wherever they are. On DiaryOftheDead the person who created the diary decides who can do what.

It is not a feed and it is not ranked by engagement: a DiaryOftheDead diary is a page about one person that stays put, and it is not sold to advertisers or pushed into other people's timelines. It also gives the family control, including over who can see it and who can add to it, that a general-purpose profile does not.

An online memorial is a digital space where the life, story and memories of a person who has died can be preserved and shared, gathering photographs, biography, stories and tributes into one place. On DiaryOftheDead that space is a memorial diary, and creating one is free.

To preserve memories, to share a person's life story, and to give relatives and friends a place to return to after a funeral. They are especially useful when family members live in different cities or countries, and when the people who remember someone best are not the people who can travel. That is the case DiaryOftheDead was built for: a memorial a relative can reach from anywhere, on a phone, without an account.

Depending on the platform, it can hold photographs, life dates, a biography, stories, memories, tributes, funeral information, ceremony links and other meaningful content. On DiaryOftheDead it can also hold music, video and voice, the condolence register and the details of a resting place.

See a real memorial diary

Yes. A DiaryOftheDead memorial is accessible through the internet, so family and friends in other countries can visit it and take part remotely, subject to the privacy and access settings the family has chosen.

Not quite. A funeral website is usually about one event, the service, its time and its directions. A memorial is about the person, and it outlives the ceremony: on DiaryOftheDead the same page can carry the service details and then become the place the family visits for years afterwards.

Live ceremonies

You can start with the person's name, a photograph, their birth and death dates, a short biography and a few memories. Anything else, more photographs, longer stories, music, can be added later, so it is worth beginning with what you have rather than waiting until you have everything. Creating a diary on DiaryOftheDead asks for a name, a face and the dates, and then gets out of the way.

Create a memorial diary

No. A memorial is meant to be developed over time. Most families on DiaryOftheDead begin with the essentials and add photographs, stories and memories as they find them, often with other relatives contributing once the page is shared.

It usually works better to invite family and close friends first, while the page is being filled, and to open it more widely afterwards. That also gives everyone a chance to say whether there is anything the family would rather not have online. DiaryOftheDead lets you change who can see a diary at any point, so the first decision is not permanent.

Yes, where the contribution features and permissions allow it. Shared contributions make a richer record of a person's life, because the memories worth keeping are rarely all in one household. On DiaryOftheDead the family sets who may contribute, and can change it later.

See a real memorial diary

Yes. A diary on DiaryOftheDead can be shared digitally with family, friends and communities, so people who cannot be physically present can take part in the remembrance. Each diary also has a QR code that can be printed on a service sheet or a headstone plaque, so a visitor can open the register from a phone.

You can edit or remove anything you have added, and you can close or delete the memorial. On DiaryOftheDead, if a memorial is suspended or removed by the family, its condolence register goes with it, which is why the platform asks families to decide together before a page is shared widely.

Help centre

An obituary usually serves as a formal announcement and a summary of someone's death and life. An online memorial, such as a diary on DiaryOftheDead, is designed as an ongoing space for remembrance, and can include photographs, stories, memories, tributes and contributions from family and friends long after the announcement has been read.

Not necessarily. The two serve different purposes and complement each other: an obituary announces a person's passing and summarises their life, while a DiaryOftheDead memorial is a continuing place to preserve their story and memories, and most families end up with both.

Yes. An obituary can point readers to the memorial, where they can learn more about the person's life and, where the family allows it, leave a memory or a tribute of their own. Every DiaryOftheDead diary has its own address, so a printed obituary or a service sheet can carry it and a reader can type it in later.

Create a memorial diary

Usually the obituary, because it has to be ready for the announcement, and because the dates and the places you gather for it are also what the memorial needs. The memorial then becomes the longer work: on DiaryOftheDead you can link the two together and keep adding to the story for years.

A funeral livestream lets people who cannot attend a funeral physically watch the ceremony remotely, through an internet-connected device. It is usually arranged by the family or the funeral organiser, and shared as a private link with the people they want to include. DiaryOftheDead streams the ceremony from the memorial itself, so the people watching arrive at the same page the tributes live on.

Live ceremonies

Yes. Livestreaming is how family and friends in other cities or countries take part when they cannot be there in person, which is the most common reason families ask for it in the first place. A DiaryOftheDead ceremony opens in a browser, so a viewer needs no app and no account.

Live ceremonies

It helps a family include relatives and friends who cannot travel, whether because of distance, work, immigration status, cost or health. It also means the ceremony is not something the people who missed it only hear about afterwards, which is the gap DiaryOftheDead was built to close.

Yes. Watching an available funeral livestream on DiaryOftheDead is free. Streaming a funeral as the organiser may require the use of DiaryOftheDead Coins or other applicable platform features, and any cost is shown before a stream is confirmed.

Live ceremonies

Funeral livestreaming is controlled by authorised individuals or organisers rather than being open to anyone, and it is normally tied to the memorial of the person who has died. DiaryOftheDead provides the digital infrastructure for authorised funeral streaming and remote participation; the ceremony and its arrangements remain the family's.

A phone, tablet or computer with an internet connection, and the link or the diary page. No app and no account are needed to watch a DiaryOftheDead ceremony, and the stream works in a normal browser.

Yes. A ceremony can be scheduled ahead of time so the invitation and the link go out early, and it can be kept private to the people you invite rather than being public. DiaryOftheDead supports both scheduled and private ceremonies.

Live ceremonies

The family decides. A ceremony streamed on DiaryOftheDead can stay on the diary so that people who could not attend, or who want to watch again, can return to it, or it can be held privately and not kept online.

DiaryOftheDead provides a digital Funeral Marketplace where people can discover funeral-related services and products from participating providers. The marketplace is designed to make it easier for families to find relevant services in one place.

The Funeral Marketplace

You can use the DiaryOftheDead Funeral Marketplace to discover participating funeral-service providers and businesses. Available providers and categories vary by location, and coverage grows as more providers join.

The Funeral Marketplace

Yes. The DiaryOftheDead marketplace is designed to include funeral-related products as well as services, so that buyers can discover relevant offerings from participating sellers in the same place they find services.

The Funeral Marketplace

Where marketplace providers are available in your location, you can browse the relevant categories and the businesses taking part. DiaryOftheDead can expand marketplace coverage by location as more providers join, and we would rather show you fewer listings than an empty page.

Marketplace listings help you discover different providers and review the information each business makes available, such as its location, the categories it serves and how to reach it. What is shown depends on each participating seller, and DiaryOftheDead does not rank providers by payment.

Where a participating provider has enabled contact or enquiry options, you can use the details on the listing to ask a question or begin a conversation. The enquiry goes straight to the business, which answers in its own time and on its own terms, and DiaryOftheDead is not a party to what follows.

The Funeral Marketplace

No. DiaryOftheDead provides the digital marketplace and the platform infrastructure. The individual funeral services and products are provided by the independent businesses listed in the marketplace, and your agreement is with them.

The Funeral Marketplace

Yes. Funeral-related businesses can take part in the DiaryOftheDead Funeral Marketplace, subject to the platform's onboarding requirements and applicable terms.

The Funeral Marketplace

Businesses join DiaryOftheDead by completing the seller onboarding process and providing accurate information about what they offer, their business name, location, contact details and service categories. A listing is only as useful as the information behind it, so the details matter more than the description.

The Funeral Marketplace

The DiaryOftheDead marketplace gives participating businesses a digital presence where potential customers can discover their services and products. The listing and promotional features available depend on the marketplace offering at the time, and there is no charge for a family to browse.

The Funeral Marketplace

Depending on the marketplace's categories and eligibility, DiaryOftheDead can accommodate funeral homes, funeral directors, casket and coffin providers, florists, transportation providers, memorial product suppliers, and event and ceremony service providers, among others serving funeral and remembrance needs.

A listing on DiaryOftheDead can be found beyond a seller's immediate physical location when customers search for relevant services online, because the person arranging a funeral is often in another city, or another country, from the one where the service will be held. The actual reach depends on marketplace availability, the location and category, and the information the seller provides.

It gives a funeral business another digital discovery channel, where potential customers can find its services, understand what it offers and make contact. On DiaryOftheDead it also means a business can be found by the relatives arranging a funeral from abroad, who would otherwise never see it.

The Funeral Marketplace

Every listing should carry the business's accurate name, location, contact information and service category, and listings are expected to be kept up to date by the business itself. Unsupported claims about a provider's quality, pricing or availability are not published on DiaryOftheDead, and listings may be removed when they cannot be verified.

Where reviews or ratings exist, they are displayed transparently, and reviews are never manufactured. A listing on DiaryOftheDead without reviews is shown without them rather than being given numbers it has not earned.

The independent business you contacted. DiaryOftheDead is the marketplace and the platform, and it is identified as such wherever a listing might otherwise be mistaken for a first-party service, so you always know whether you are talking to us or to a provider.

The Funeral Marketplace·Terms

Because no provider has joined there yet. We deliberately avoid publishing empty location pages that promise coverage we cannot deliver: a page exists when there are real providers and useful local information behind it, not before. DiaryOftheDead grows the marketplace one verified provider at a time.

Yes. Families in Nigeria use DiaryOftheDead to create and share digital memorials for loved ones, and the interface is available in Yoruba, Igbo, Hausa and English. The condolence register and the QR code are often the parts families use first, because a service sheet can carry the code that takes a guest straight to the register.

Create a memorial diary·See a real memorial diary

Yes. A memorial created on DiaryOftheDead can be shared with relatives and friends living outside Nigeria, in the United Kingdom, the United States, or anywhere else, and they can read it, leave a condolence and, where the family allows it, contribute a memory.

Yes. DiaryOftheDead provides funeral livestreaming for authorised organisers, so people who cannot attend, often because they are abroad and cannot travel in time, can take part remotely.

Live ceremonies

Yes. DiaryOftheDead is designed for families and communities in Ghana as well as users in other countries, and the condolence register, the livestream and the diary itself work from any phone with a connection.

Create a memorial diary

Yes. A DiaryOftheDead memorial can be shared with family and friends internationally, so relatives in Europe, North America or elsewhere can visit the page, sign the register and leave memories without travelling.

Yes. DiaryOftheDead provides funeral livestreaming for authorised organisers, allowing relatives and friends who cannot attend physically to take part remotely. The family or organiser controls who the stream is shared with.

Live ceremonies

Yes. Families and communities in South Africa can create and share memorials on DiaryOftheDead, with relatives contributing from wherever they live.

Create a memorial diary

Yes. Online memorials connect family members across cities and countries, which is often the point: the people who would most want to be at a funeral in Johannesburg or Cape Town may be in London, Perth or Toronto. A DiaryOftheDead diary is one link that reaches all of them.

Yes. DiaryOftheDead provides funeral livestreaming for authorised organisers, and a stream can be kept private to the people invited rather than being public.

Live ceremonies

Yes. DiaryOftheDead is designed as a global platform for creating and sharing online memorials, and it is free to use in the United States and elsewhere.

Create a memorial diary

Yes, where contribution permissions are enabled. Family and friends can take part in preserving memories and tributes from different states and different time zones, which also means a DiaryOftheDead memorial can be filled in over days rather than in one gathering.

Yes. A DiaryOftheDead memorial can be shared internationally, and a relative in another country does not need an account to read one or to leave a condolence.

Yes. Families in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland use DiaryOftheDead for memorials and for funeral livestreams, and the ceremony can be streamed for relatives who cannot travel to it.

Create a memorial diary·Live ceremonies

Yes. A livestream on DiaryOftheDead can be watched from any device with a connection, which is exactly what families use it for when the people who should be in the room are on another continent.

Live ceremonies

No. On DiaryOftheDead you decide who can see a diary and who can contribute to it, and you can keep it private while the family gathers photographs and stories, then open it when you are ready.

Yes. Families across the provinces can create and share memorials on DiaryOftheDead, and relatives elsewhere in Canada or abroad can visit, leave condolences and add memories.

Create a memorial diary

Yes. One DiaryOftheDead memorial serves everyone, wherever they are: contributions from Vancouver, Montreal and Halifax land on the same page, and the family can see all of them in one place.

Yes. DiaryOftheDead provides funeral livestreaming for authorised organisers, so relatives who cannot travel can watch a service live from wherever they are.

Live ceremonies

Yes. Families in Australia use DiaryOftheDead for memorials and livestreamed ceremonies, and the platform handles the time difference as well as the distance, a service in Sydney can be watched live, or revisited afterwards.

Create a memorial diary

Yes. Distance between Australian states is one of the reasons families look for this: a relative in Perth can watch a service in Melbourne, and a relative in Manila can watch it with them, on a DiaryOftheDead ceremony that opens in the browser they already have.

Live ceremonies

Yes, and most families do. A DiaryOftheDead memorial can be started with a name and a photograph and filled in over months, whenever somebody remembers something worth keeping.

Yes. Families in Mexico can create and share memorials on DiaryOftheDead, and relatives in the United States, Central America or anywhere else can visit and contribute to them.

Create a memorial diary

Yes. A memorial can be shared across the border in a single link, which is often how families who are split between the two countries keep one page rather than several. DiaryOftheDead keeps it in one place, in whichever of its ten languages each reader prefers.

Yes, DiaryOftheDead is available in Spanish as well as English, Portuguese, French, Hindi, Chinese, Arabic, Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba. Mexican Spanish copy written to native standard is a planned improvement, and this page will be reviewed as it lands.