Privacy‑First Memorials — OurObit.org

Introduction

OurObit is a privacy-first web service for creating and managing online obituary memorials, built and launched in Victoria, BC in early 2026. It grew out of a simple frustration: most memorial services are tied to newspaper archives, buried in social media feeds, or are ad-supported or funded by taking a portion of the donations to charity.

OurObit's model is different — a single lifetime subscription, owned by the family, shareable via a unique short ID or private link, with no advertising and no data harvesting. The family owns the memorial outright.

Design Brief

The core design principles were (1) dignity over engagement and (2) organic memories grow over time. Memorials are not social media posts, and the UX reflects that. Authors can start with a simple obit and service details, but grow the memorial with photos, tributes, and rich detail as time goes by.

Controlled sharing. Each memorial is assigned a unique short ID (e.g. ourobit.org/hfnt9794). Families choose how public it is: fully private, password-protected, or opted in to search engine indexing.

Easy to edit and grow your memorial. Every memorial has 13 parts, each optional and customizable:

1. Large feature photograph
2. Full name, with traditional name support for varied font glyphs
3. A 1–2 sentence life-summary
4. Celebration of Life or church service details
5. A managed photo gallery with captions
6. A main prose memorial section with font styling
7. Tributes from visitors, managed by the author
8. Consent-based memorial-to-memorial connections (e.g. parent, spouse, sibling)
9. A charity link to direct donations
10. A form to contact the author — for tributes and condolences
11. Selectable themes — or a fully custom theme for Lifetime subscribers
12. Optional password protection
13. Optional search engine indexing

Author tools. Simplified memorial management and practical add-ons:

1. No limit to edits
2. Publish and unpublish as needed
3. Basic analytics — view how many unique views
4. Download an HTML archive
5. Print the whole memorial
6. Keepsake — download a colour print file with 9 'keepsake' cards showing the memorial feature image, name, and a QR code link to the memorial.

Check it out!

OurObit is live at ourobit.org. Lifetime subscriptions are available at launch pricing — and as an added promotion, each Lifetime subscription purchase includes a gift code to share a free Lifetime subscription with a friend.