Keeping loved ones’ stories alive with QR codes on gravestones

“I feel like everyone in the world is carrying around a movie’s worth of information, and for that to be lost after they pass, it’s so unfortunate,” says Judie Russell, Cork woman and co-founder of a new business helping to preserve the memory of those who have passed away.

Each year around 30,000 people die in Ireland, each a person with a life and a story that can’t be told within the confines of a gravestone.

When Judie Russell, Luke Murphy and Danny O’Donovan crossed paths in UCC, ‘The Story Of’ was born, as they discovered a shared desire to tell the life stories of their loved ones.

Judie said she had been recording videos of her own mother for years on her laptop, with an idea to put together a “Visual Legacy” for future generations to be able to learn about and understand her life.

She told The Echo that one day something clicked when she was running a video training day in UCC, which Danny was attending, and they got chatting about how he was trying to commemorate his grandfather, Cork boxing legend Danzer Nagle.

“He was trying to do a headstone for his grandfather, but there was a limited amount of characters that you could put on a headstone. He had spent a lot of time looking into it, he was thinking of putting an iPad into the headstone where a montage of photos could be played, and powering it through a solar USB,” she said.

“Then he said what about a QR code, and then I suggested the QR code could lead to a page telling that person’s life story, that we could marry the two ideas,” she added.

And so, a new business venture ‘The Story Of’ was born, with Luke coming on board shortly afterwards, “the cement of the whole thing” in terms of project management, according to Judie.

The trio have been working on their business concept for over year, which immortalises the stories of those who have passed away through a QR code on their gravestones, which leads to a web page telling the story of their life.

Danny’s grandfather, Danny “Danzer” Nagle is one of the first people to have a QR code put on their gravestone, with the hope to embed a similar one on a plaque being erected in his honour by the Cork Ex-Boxers Association.

Those passing Danzer’s grave in Kilcully can take out their phone camera to scan the engraved QR code, which will bring them to a page telling the story of his achievements and the highlights of his career, through old photos, newspaper clippings and memories gathered by his grandson Danny.

‘The Story Of’ works with families to gather information about their deceased loved ones, through video, audio, images and words that are then assembled in a final page that represents the legacy of a person’s life.

QR codes can then be engraved on headstones or attached to an urn, bench, or even printed on remembered cards.

“Anyone can create a QR code and direct it to a web page that they host themselves, but what we’re really trying to lean into here is to help people tell the stories and capture the stories in a way that’s interesting for other people to read,” said Judie.

“We want it to have some of the grey stuff, some of the life lessons, the stories about how they got on at school, stuff that you can’t guess, stuff that you’d love to know about people in the past but you can’t ask them,” she added.

Having made pages for both her deceased great grandfather, and mother who is still alive, Judie says that the payoff is massive in putting together a person’s life story.

“It’s just so satisfying, the feeling of accomplishment when you publish the page… This is something great to do to honour your elders, it’s not depressing or morbid, it’s fun and you’re learning and you’re developing a relationship,” she said.

“There’s a bit of work in capturing someone’s story, but then the payoff for that is insane. It never gets old, it’s always there, it’s evergreen, it’s something that you can look back on in generations to come,” she added.

Currently, ‘The Story Of’ deals with people on a one to one basis, working with them on how best to tell their loved one’s story, piecing together all the files onto a web page that they host, and issuing QR codes, for an introductory fee of €350.

“What we’re hoping is that if we can get an investor, we can start building a software that will actually automate it so we don’t have to do the manual stuff, and then hopefully with economies of scale, we might be able to charge people less when it’s less hands on,” said Judie.

Having launched a drive for investors and customers in November, she said that there has already been great interest.

“I’m seeing the emails come in and I’m just amazed by the amount of sharing people are doing with us. There’s people telling us stories about their parents dying recently, someone’s friend died recently, another person has lost her child and she’s saying she just can’t do the gravestone yet because there isn’t enough space on there to tell the story of this gorgeous person,” said Judie.

“Reading through those, I’m just so amazed that people feel like sharing with us, and they’re trusting us with helping them to try and tell that story a bit better… even [potential] investors have stories of people who they want to capture, people who they have lost,” she added.

Judie says that Irish people are naturally drawn to storytelling, and that there is a lot of ancestral history in Ireland that is waiting to be told.

“I think the good thing about being Irish is we were always verbal people, we didn’t have a written language and we had to tell things through storytelling and make it interesting… I think we’ve got a lot of ancestral history to lean on, to make this a nice thing for people to do,” she said.

She also said that there has never been a better time for an idea like The Story Of to take off.

“The big thing about this is the timing as well, I think mobile technology has become so good… we are carrying around these amazing storytelling devices and now is the time to do it,” she said.

People can contact the website www.thestoryof.io if they would like to have their own story or the story of their loved one recorded and embedded on a gravestone.