A trend that has been seen across the United States is now in Europe.
Funeral homes and memorial companies have been adding QR codes to tombstones throughout the United States, and this trend has now caught on in Europe, as a Danish company adds the mobile barcodes to its grave markers.
Quick response codes have proven to be a touching and practical addition to a gravesite.
Not too long ago, the names that were marked on a gravestone had to be painstakingly researched and cross referenced by genealogists in order to help to assemble the details of the life story of a deceased individual. Though the internet has provided some assistance in this light, the introduction of QR codes to cemeteries could mean a tremendous difference in this research.
QR codes also provide a meaningful opportunity to help remember a loved one.
A graveyard in Roskilde, Denmark, has now embraced this opportunity and has added the option of including QR codes on their gravestones for a cost of approximately €100 (around $123). This way, families can create online content in memory of their deceased loved one in order to keep that person’s legacy alive.
Scanning the barcodes can direct a smartphone or tablet user to a website which contains everything from text to images, or even audio and video features.
This mobile friendly feature is being offered by the largest gravestone manufacturer in Denmark, which believes that these barcodes will soon be as common as writing a will. Also in that country, the town of Holbaek’s church council has purchased a number of the QR codes in order to help them to memorialize local dignitaries. These include the founder of the Venstre political party in the country (who was also the mayor of that town), who died many years ago.
Provided that QR codes stick around for many years to come, they could provide an incredible opportunity for family and local history and memories to be preserved. This could mean that historians of the future will be offered a simple tool to discover the information that they are seeking – or that they will be left wondering what that strange black and white square could have meant.
