A place to remember

TributeMap is maintained by Johan and family. Every tribute and every memory is read personally, usually within a day.

The idea grew from our own losses. Over the years we've said goodbye to people and pets we loved. Some of them were scattered at special places: a forest where we often walked, a viewpoint by the water, a meadow that belongs to the family. Those places stayed important to us, and also to relatives and later generations who sometimes want to go there without losing track of where it is.

Something else came later. While researching our own family tree we noticed how hard old graves can be to find. Stones that have sunken into the ground, names that are barely legible anymore, and entire rows of graves that no longer appear on the cemetery map. More than once a caretaker had to walk us all the way to the right spot. We recorded those locations with a small GPS unit at the time, simply so we wouldn't lose them again. It felt like a way to honor our ancestors: no longer unfindable.

Something similar happens with photographs. The world changes: a street looks different now than it once did, a house has disappeared, an avenue has been replanted. Sometimes we have an older image of such a spot, often not ourselves but someone else does. Having an original photo professionally reproduced is expensive and cumbersome these days. Taking a picture of that old photo and adding it to a tribute is a far more accessible way to briefly bring everyone back to that time. Not everything needs archive quality; sometimes an honest snapshot is enough.

From those experiences, TributeMap grew: a calm place where such locations and images are preserved, where memories don't disappear into a phone or onto a forgotten shelf, and where others can catch a glimpse too.

Questions or remarks? Feel free to write to info@tributemap.com.

A platform that preserves places should itself last a long time. We think about that. A wish for the future →