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 Interment.net
by Steve Johnson, November 29, 2000
Interment.net is a website publisher of genealogical materials relating
to cemeteries, funerals, and burials. It's home office is located in Lake
Forest, CA. It was founded by myself.
In 1990, Roy Johnson, a cousin of mine was researching the lineage of
their Johnson family. Roy sent a copy of his work to me to examine. Lisa,
my wife, and I looked it over, and Lisa became interested in putting together
her genealogy. I showed her how to use a computer to store all the information.
After Lisa typed in everything she could recollect, she and I began researching
deeper into her family line. By this time, genealogy was turning into
a heavy interest. I started researching some of my own family that Roy
did not include. We planned several trips to libraries, contacted court
houses all over the country, and began communicating with distant relatives.
Genealogy had become a big passion.
In 1996, Lisa and I started using the Internet as a genealogical research
tool. I noticed that several people had published "cemetery transcriptions"
on their own personal websites. A cemetery transcription is a listing
of persons buried at a cemetery, including tombstone inscriptions, historical
reference of the cemetery, photographs, and other pertinent information.
I tried to find some other resource that listed all the websites that
published these transcriptions, but none could be found. So, I decided
to create one. I began searching for websites with transcriptions, and
created a directory of these sites organized into geographical regions.
The site was named, "Cemetery Interment Lists on the Internet",
and was housed on my own personal website.
As the site grew, it became popular with other genealogists. Traffic
increased quickly and steadily. Soon, people began submitting electronic
copies of cemetery transcriptions to me for publishing on my site. At
first, I was not interested in publishing actual transcriptions. I was
only interested in creating directory of other websites that published
them. But these people became insistent that they wanted them published,
and they knew no other way to do it. I referred to another website, Tombstone
Transcription Project, which specialized in publishing them. However,
several people mentioned that had indeed submitted their work to them,
but they were either dissatisfied with them, or they just wanted to give
their work as much publicity as possible.
So, I began publishing them. It seemed to have opened the flood gates.
People began submitting their transcriptions to me for publication. I
had to rethink my operation.
In January of 1998, I moved the site off of my personal site and on to
its own domain. I registered the name "interment.net" at this
time, and redesigned the whole site to be more conducive with publishing
transcriptions. Having this new domain name really helped increase traffic.
The site was starting to grow faster than I could keep up. In June of
1999, I changed the name of the site to "Cemetery Records on the
Internet", which I felt was more easily understandable.
By July of 1999, my focus shifted entirely towards publishing transcriptions.
Adding links to other sites became secondary. At this time, I also launched
our electronic journal, "The Cemetery Column", which has since
grown to become the most widely read cemetery publication on the Internet.
Also at this time, we began selling advertising space on the site, and
rely solely upon its revenues for support. Up until then, everything had
been financed from my own personal funds.
In December of 1999, traffic had grown to a point where the server we
were hosted on could no longer handle all the visitors. Some people tried
accessing the site and were denied, often getting "time outs"
from their browsers. We moved the site to its own dedicated server. Also
at this time, we did another major redesign, and renamed the site to "Cemetery
Records Online".
2000 proved to be the most productive and most successful year ever for
Cemetery Records Online. In January of 2000, Maggie Rail joined us as
an associate editor, and now performs the bulk of the publishing duties.
My wife Lisa manages the accounting, while I manage the operations. Throughout
2000, several articles published in The Cemetery Column have been distributed
through several other genealogical publications, including the journal
of the Ontario Genealogical Society, Ancestry.com, a host of small genealogical
society newsletters, and a number of genealogical columns in newspapers.
This year we have negotiated partnerships with a number of key websites,
including CemeteryJunction.com, DistantCousin.com, and SavingGraves.com.
Through these partnerships, we work together to cross promote each other
and take part in special promotions to increase each other's brand awareness.
As of this writing, Cemetery Records Online is the largest online publisher
of cemetery transcriptions, and The Cemetery Column is the largest online
publication of cemetery related articles. Together, Interment.net is one
of the world's top 20 most important websites for genealogical research.
It is among the top 10 most busiest websites based in Orange County, sharing
breath with Buy.com, Autobytel.com, and Tickets.com.
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Visit Interment.net at: http://www.interment.net
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