The History of Interment.net
In 1996, I learned how to build websites. I had been involved with computer programming since I was a 14-year-old teenager in 1980. Then in 1997, I wanted to build something big, and I mean BIG. That’s when I started building Interment.net.
I was heavily into genealogy going back to around 1992. By 1996, I had already found a handful of genealogy websites, like Rootsweb, USGenWeb, Olive Tree Genealogy, etc. Neither of them focused on cemeteries, so I decided to make that my niche.
Flat File Format
Interment.net had long published transcriptions in a flat-file format, similar to what USGenWeb Archives had used. At the time, USGenWeb Archives was the premier destination for genealogical data (Ancestry.com did not exist in 1996).
So, when I started building Interment.net in 1997, I used a similar system, but instead of using ASCII text files, I used HTML files. I saw flat HTML files as a big advantage over USGenWeb Archives because it allowed for markup of headings, paragraphs, and tables.
The Evolution of Find-a-Grave
Find-a-Grave started in 1996 but had been restricted to burials of celebrities. It was never a genealogical resource. Sometime around 2000, Jim Tipton, the founder of Find-a-Grave chose to make modifications to allow for the entry of all burials, famous or not-famous.
Jim managed to build a solid following of users, and it wasn’t long before those users started copying the records from USGenWeb Archives and Interment.net in a frenzy to ramp up their personal “record counts” on Find-a-Grave.
I met with Jim in person about this to voice my complaint over the transcription-pillaging. The general feeling he laid out was that “genealogical data is not subject to copyright laws”, which I actually do agree with. However, it went against the grain of respect that genealogy publishers had for each other at the time. I think Jim did sympathize with my position, and he did in fact post a message to his users on Find-a-Grave’s message boards about this, but there was effectively nothing to stop his users.
When Ancestry.com purchased Find-a-Grave in 2013, and integrated it into their online offerings, it effectively killed Interment.net. Nearly all of the transcribers, save for a handful of loyalists, stopped contributing to us, and moved over to Find-a-Grave.
The Slow Years
From 2013 to 2024 Interment.net continued on life-support. Maggie Rail, our editor who tirelessly worked on editing and publishing transcriptions for us, passed away in 2018. I transitioned towards acquiring records directly from cemeteries, cemetery districts, and municipal governments, to make up for the near-total loss of content contributions. Despite this, Interment.net continued to lose visitors.
Complicating the matter, the sponsors we relied on for funding of Interment.net moved away, leaving us with only GenealogyBank.com to keep the lights on (and I am very grateful that they are still with us).
The Database Transition
Now with AI burning through the Internet like an 1890 census torching, I can see that Interment.net needs to transition to an entirely new technology. A new generation of genealogists will ask AI-assistants on their cellphones to research their ancestry, instead of visiting websites themselves.
The concept is not farfetched.
Enter “MCP Servers”.
Model Context Protocol is a thing, look it up. It allows AI-assistants to connect to computer servers to access information. These are effectively websites for AI robots. Thousands of companies are already setting up their own MCP servers, containing a wide variety of information about their products and services. Many of these MCP servers perform services themselves, like allowing an AI-assistant to place an order, schedule an appointment, or draw a picture.
Ancestry.com could set up an MCP server to host all of its genealogical data, but why would they? AI-assistants can’t pay with a credit card.
Or can they?
Anyway, that’s why I’m moving Interment.net to a database architecture. It will allow me to eventually set up an MCP server where AI-assistants can access all of this information, which paves the way for newer generations of genealogists to utilize cemetery transcriptions.
What I’ve Done Thus Far
In March of 2025 I built the database structure and began migrating the old “flat file” transcriptions into SQL import files. I started writing all the programming code. It’s very tedious, very arduous, very cerebral work. I have neurons experiencing impulses they haven’t felt in years.
You can already see what I’ve created at…
https://www.interment.net/index.php
If you don’t add the “index.php” at the end, you will be taken to the old website…
Once I get about 50% of all content migrated over to the database, then I’ll change the URL so that both addresses display the new site.
The end result of all this is a cemetery records database that will rival that of Find-a-Grave and Billion Graves. It won’t be the same, but it will offer features that they don’t offer, and it will be positioned for the AI future.
Interment.net in the Future
Interment.net’s greatest advantage over Find-a-Grave and Billion Graves is that it can publish multiple transcriptions for the same cemetery…
The basic unit of Interment.net is the transcription, while the basic unit of the other two is the individual burial.
This is why Find-a-Grave and Billion Graves do not duplicate the same decedent (or at least try not to). This forces them to assign an “owner” to each decedent, which becomes the cause of in-fighting at Find-a-Grave.
Interment.net allows each cemetery to host an infinite number of transcriptions. Thus, if two or more people wanted to transcribe a cemetery, each can upload their own transcription, and neither have to reconcile differences between overlapping records.
This fundamental difference, I believe, is the answer to archiving old, historical cemetery transcriptions into a modern-day architecture. We can copy a transcription from 1920, type it into Interment.net, and still host a new transcription from 2025 for the same cemetery. Users will be able to see both and compare the changes.
Why you should subscribe to this newsletter
If you’re curious to follow the rebuilding of Interment.net into a viable competitor to Find-a-Grave and Billion Graves, then subscribe. The coming installments of this newsletter will discuss what new features I’ve put in place, and some thoughts about how cemetery records should play a role in family history research.