The Digital Afterlife: Web Cemeteries and Their Potential for Sport History

Abstract

Death notices and obituaries have existed for centuries and have been democratized to include ordinary people previously deemed unworthy of public commemoration. With the advent of the internet, mortuaries, newspapers, survivors, and memorial websites have broadcast these life epilogues online along with guestbooks, transforming monologic cyber obituaries into dialogic web cemeteries. While critics argue the internet promotes social isolation, some thanatologists counter that web cemeteries foster (para)social relationships. They contend these digital platforms are sites of meaningful personal expression and community building and combat modern society’s institutionalization of death. However, sport historians have yet to thoroughly investigate these sources, which offer much to those interpreting the human experience. This paper illustrates how web cemeteries can be valuable sources for historians researching sporting persons, communities, and fandoms; it shows how web cemeteries reveal people’s identifying features and values, their shared characteristics and experiences, and how they coped with life and death, allowing broader contemplation on historical inequities and disparities with implications beyond sport. Various applications and approaches suitable for web cemeteries are discussed here. Though not exhaustive, these provide historians a framework and point of departure for examining novel sources to develop nuanced historical inquiry and interpretation.

1. Introduction

Over a century ago, the field of sport history entered the American academic discourse when Paxson articulated the theory that sport’s ascendency had contributed to the reform efforts of the Progressive Era in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, expanding worker, civil, and political rights. For Paxson, the increase in sports participation was a significant factor in social change, inspiring a new Americanism (Paxson 1917). Although Paxson romanticizes the American experience and sport’s role within it, he is perhaps the first United States (US) historian to use sport as a lens to understand society. Throughout the twentieth century most American historians refused to acknowledge sport as a serious research subject. However, following the field’s cultural turn, many began to argue that the modernization of athletics combatted societal ills throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (Levin 1980; Cavallo 1981; Hardy 1982; Rosenzweig 1983; Adelman 1986; R. Roberts 1999; Dyerson 2013; Schultz and Lucas 2013; Garcia 2013; Black Fives Foundation 2023).

The historiography of American sport and culture includes diverse thematic approaches that explore identity, community, and power. Social and cultural historians emphasize the role of sport as a site of leisure and working-class expression, often grounded in archival research and urban studies frameworks. These historians uncover how recreational activities reflected and shaped broader socioeconomic trends (Rosenzweig 1983; Adelman 1986). Meanwhile, other historians examine identity formation through biographical and archival methods to highlight how racial and ethnic minorities used sport to resist marginalization and forge identities, underscoring sport’s capacity for exclusion and empowerment (Reiss 1989; Levine 1993; R. Roberts 1999; Garcia 2013). Feminist and gender scholars examine how women’s sports experiences challenge traditional gender norms. Their work draws on oral histories, ethnography, and sociological theory to emphasize how sport reinforces or disrupts gendered expectations (Grundy and Shackleford 2007; Cooky and Esmonde 2015; Pope 2017). National identity and the concept of imagined communities form another central theme, seen in the works of those who argue that sport fosters a shared sense of belonging and cultural mythology (Hobsbawm 1990; Harris 2007). Some sociologists of sport offer critiques of late capitalism and alienation through sport, while public historians reclaim neglected narratives, particularly around African American athletes, through digital and community-based storytelling (Kalman-Lamb 2018, 2020; Johnson 2022; Kalman-Lamb and Silva 2024). Another sport sociologist recently explained that, over the twentieth century, athletes became influential celebrities in American and British societies largely because of their perceived authenticity (Smart 2005). Together, this extensive work demonstrates that sport is far more than entertainment. It is a powerful cultural institution that reflects and reshapes society.

Another phenomenon that has historically shaped cultural values, beliefs, and practices is death. Therefore, this paper proposes that historians can use sport and death as complementary lenses through which to examine the human experience. If sport is truly something people have lived for, as athletes, coaches, and supporters, then web cemeteries provide a unique space for uncovering these phenomena, offering rich insights into both the deceased and the living. This paper’s primary contribution to the historiography lies in its suggestion that web cemeteries offer historians an innovative way to explore the past.

1.1. Sports Fandom

Analyses and syntheses of web cemeteries can elucidate the key features of individuals and their sporting communities. However, they are well-suited for fan studies in particular. Utilizing countless disciplinary approaches, methodologies, sources, and theoretical frameworks, researchers of sports fandoms have contributed significantly towards understanding who sports fans are and how and why they support their respective teams (Shulman 1996; Harris 2007; Andrews et al. 2014; Criblez 2015; Gye 2015; Linden 2015; Foot 2016; D. C. Galindo 2022; McCarthy 2024). The etymology of the word fan has been debated in various academic circles (Shulman 1996). Since the 1870s, journalists have described sports fandom as an illness (Cavicchi 2014). While defining fandom as a pathology has often negatively and unfairly characterized fans as deviant or illogical, Cavicchi suggests that historians of fandom can learn a great deal from historians of science who have forensically studied diseases to trace their antecedents and evolution (Jenson 1992). For Cavicchi, if historians of fandom applied similar methodologies, they could potentially identify, describe, and define such phenomena and their evolution. As a relatively new academic field, fan studies have primarily focused on fandom after 1900. However, there is evidence that such a thing existed long before fan or fanatic entered the popular discourse, and sports played a significant role in defining who was involved and what it meant to be one (Cavicchi 2014). As notions of the fan evolved, so too did fan communities.

The extensive literature of sports fandom underscores the positives and negatives of such phenomena (Brohm 1989; Wilcox 2003; Kalman-Lamb 2018; D. C. Galindo 2024). A recent trend in the field is the recognition of fan agency. As a result, previous interpretations of supporters as deluded sycophants or merely exploited consumers have been contested with portrayals of them as multidimensional human beings (Cavicchi 1998; Cottingham 2012; Jenkins 2013; Linden 2015). Another emerging pattern in scholarship is a focus on athletes and fans from marginalized groups. Researchers have affirmed their existence in attempts to understand them in different geographical and temporal contexts (Lomax 2000; Southby 2013a, 2013b; Paramio-Salcines et al. 2014; Paramio-Salcines et al. 2015; García et al. 2016; Huang 2019; Penfold and Kitchin 2020; Brown 2020; Peers 2023). Despite this extensive body of research, very few historians of sport have explored death and its cultural artifacts to develop new, more nuanced interpretations of sports fandoms and other sporting communities (Clotfelter 2015; David Galindo 2020; D. C. Galindo 2024).

1.2. Death Studies

Death studies bring together psychologists, sociologists, health professionals, anthropologists, lawyers, educational theorists, communicationists, historians, social workers, and more to develop an understanding of terminal illness, the process of dying, bereavement, mourning, funeral customs, and suicide. Such work has applicability far beyond academic circles as those on the frontlines in hospitals, assisted living facilities, suicide prevention centers, and mortuaries apply best practices daily. This multidisciplinary field has much to offer historians of any variety; some have already developed interpretations of the past using such an innovative approach (Gorer 1965; Ariès 1981; Faust 2008; Lacquer 2015; Herbert 2019; David Galindo 2020).

As historians, we are in tune with our mortality, provided that most of those we study have departed from this observable dimensional plane. There is a seemingly organic connection between death studies and history that we often overlook. Not without reason, we often shift focus away from a person’s death to their experiences in life and the communicative primary sources they leave behind. However, cultural artifacts and traditions surrounding a person’s death can provide historians with insight into the values and experiences of those we study. Centering death and the sources it creates can modify and complicate the sport history historiography. This approach can also highlight how death cultivates the creation of stories. It is these stories that can foster community building and, in turn, shape renderings of the historical past.

Seminal historical works explored how Western practices and views of death have changed (Gorer 1965; Ariès 1981; Hall 2002). The discourse on the work the dead require of the living is relevant to this methodological exploration. In their research, historians Faust and Lacquer discuss mortal remains and the responsibilities survivors assumed to care for them due to centuries of Western tradition (Faust 2008; Lacquer 2015). While Lacquer traverses cultural practices in numerous regions over thousands of years, Faust discusses but a few years during and in the wake of the American Civil War. Faust shows how mass death reshaped Americans’ understandings of life, death, and national purpose through adaptations in mourning, burying, and commemorating (Faust 2008). A poignant anecdote Lacquer cited in his cultural history on mortal remains was from Diogenes the Cynic. In a conversation with his peers, Diogenes requested that his corpse be thrown over the city walls to be consumed by beasts. His peers expressed concern about his well-being. Diogenes explained, “How am I then injured by being torn by those animals if I have no sensation?” (Lacquer 2015). If Diogenes had his way, it would appear as though his corpse would be deprived of a basic level of humanity. Despite mortal remains being a shell of a person, survivors have committed to honor and commemorate them for generations through sacral practices. Such practices have developed into modern burials and funerals, traditions supplemented with contemporary bereavement practices such as death notices and obituaries. Collectively, these practices have acted as a bulwark against the current that pulls many into the waters of oblivion. For these reasons, the following sections explore cultural artifacts the dead ostensibly require of contemporary society. The cultural artifacts explored are cyber obituaries and web cemeteries. After defining and contextualizing these sources, considerations of their applicability to the field of sport history and fandom in particular are made. While some researchers of sport have acknowledged the value of cyber obituaries and web cemeteries, additional evidence and suggested methodologies are still needed to employ these sources in future studies (Clotfelter 2015; David Galindo 2020; D. C. Galindo 2024).

2. Materials

2.1. Cyber Obituaries

Since its cultural turn, historians have attempted to uncover the experiences and values of everyday sorts of people and how they manage life and death (Faust 2008; Lacquer 2015; Herbert 2019). A way to investigate such a notion is by collecting and analyzing the epilogues of life of ordinary people. For centuries, the press rarely commemorated common people beyond a standard death notice. However, local newspapers and communities began democratizing this medium to include more personalized and detailed obituaries of community members during the mid-twentieth century (Hume 2003). This evolution and the recent technological revolution of the late twentieth century facilitated the embrace, accessibility, and popularity of cyber obituaries in the twenty-first century (P. Roberts 2004; de Vries and Rutherford 2004; Hume and Bressers 2010). Communication scientists suggest that paid obituaries, not written by journalists, are useful narratives that give researchers a window into the lives of ordinary people (Hume and Bressers 2010). The term obituary will be referenced on the understanding that each did more than just report a notice of death because commemorators included personalized biographies of the deceased. Obituaries’ academic utility and cultural significance have been demonstrated in historical, thanatological, sociological, communication, library and information science studies, and sport studies (Hall 2002; Dilevko and Gottlieb 2004; Clotfelter 2015).

Although useful, historians must acknowledge that these narratives were constructed by others and not by the departed themselves, recording what writers thought as opposed to what the departed did, reinforcing the point that historical sources are biased, distorted, or filtered (Day 2018). Regardless, contemporary obituaries serve important purposes as a death notice and biographical epilogue. Unlike autobiographical sources, survivors and funeral directors write these narratives to represent the departed and express what they value about them (Hall 2002). Although sometimes hagiographic, the obituary’s historical accuracy is less significant than its cultural function. These sources function as bereavement aids and memorials, showcasing ordinary people’s lived experiences and values. Historians have discussed the art of dying in developing and solidifying a person’s memory; the obituary serves as a denouement (Hall 2002; Faust 2008; David Galindo 2020). Survivors visit and reflect on these sources in the short and long term after someone has died, illuminating how the end of a life does not necessarily equate to the end of a relationship (Hume 2003; Hume and Bressers 2010; de Vries and Rutherford 2004; David Galindo 2020; D. C. Galindo 2024).1

Researchers from various fields, including sport studies, have explored these unconventional sources to discover the identifying features of people’s lives (Hall 2002; Dilevko and Gottlieb 2004; Clotfelter 2015). Accepting these sources as a representation of reality and not reality itself forces one to recognize the similarities between obituaries and the craft of history (Gaddis 2004). Obituaries, much like historical narratives, serve as powerful tools of representation. Obituaries also occupy a liminal space between life and death, memory and forgetting. Such a liminality has been discussed concerning urban sport statues that produce contemplative realms for onlookers “to juggle with the factors of existence” in a Third Space of being (Slowikowski 2003).2 Obituaries, like statues, create a temporal suspension that interrupts ordinary time, pulling observers into a deeper state of rumination. The sense of in-betweenness generated by these sources assists viewers in the construction of their respective reality and aids in the development of a remembrance. Unlike statues, obituaries are not on display in the streets but can be visited in perhaps an even more accessible place.

The Legacy Memorial website is the world’s largest obituary database, hosting tens of millions of cyber obituaries (Legacy n.d.). Communicationists suggest that Legacy has supplanted the antiquated newsprint obituary section because of its accessibility and popularity and at least one historian and one sociologist of sport have supported that claim in their respective research (Hume and Bressers 2010; Clotfelter 2015; David Galindo 2020). Legacy boasts an audience of over forty million monthly visitors and partners with more than 1500 newspapers and 3500 funeral homes globally (Legacy n.d.). Discoverable information from a cyber obituary can include but is not limited to a person’s image, birth and death date, age, gender and sexual identity, occupation, geographical location, race, ethnicity, education, religion, disability, politics, and anything they or their survivors value enough to include. These identifying features can be analyzed collectively or apart to develop historical interpretations of a person, community, or society.3

2.2. Web Cemeteries

While cyber obituaries provide more substantive narratives than their print predecessors, web cemeteries offer historians dialogic living sources. The web cemetery is an interactive platform in the public domain where cyber obituaries are housed. Along with the cyber obituary, a web cemetery includes memorial service and mortuary information and posted memories from survivors in syntax, photographs, videos, and guestbooks. Mortuaries often include the publication of a web cemetery on their website in packages patrons purchase. The deceased’s obituary can be included in a local newspaper for an extra fee; if Legacy partners with that newspaper, a web cemetery will be echoed in their database. Legacy has agreements with more than 2600 US-based newspapers. Beyond the United States, Legacy’s global reach continues to grow. The company collaborates with hundreds of newspapers across Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, and Europe (Estes 2022). The extensive reach of Legacy provides historians with an accessible and easily navigable database that allows users to search by name, date, location, newspaper, and keyword. Researchers of sports fandom have utilized this platform to identify and examine fan communities (Clotfelter 2015; David Galindo 2020; D. C. Galindo 2024). Legacy surely offers historians interested in studying athletes, coaches, and fans a robust and intimate space for exploration. Altogether, historians can analyze and synthesize web cemeteries based on their particular interest in uncovering the lives of ordinary people. Such explorations can potentially enhance understanding of the modern human experience and communities.

In the first century BCE, Cicero proclaimed in the Philippics, “The life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living.” Death has the undeniable ability to propagate stories that foster (para)social relationships and communities. Although rooted in the twenty-first century, web cemeteries reflect global continuums as numerous institutions and mediums honor the dead, reimagining and redesigning public memorials and commemorations in nearly every generation (Hatch 1991; Hume 2000; Doss 2010). However, unlike previous generations, much of contemporary Western society has made death a hidden enterprise, leaving many who are dying and mourning unprepared for such a momentous experience. However, web cemeteries combat this trend by giving mourners a public space for ritual and remembrance while simultaneously allowing for qualitative research that captures the humanity of the deceased and their survivors. Scholars have used these sources in their research to understand the changing nature of bereavement (Hatch 1991; Hume 2000; de Vries and Rutherford 2004; Doss 2010). The internet certainly has its fair share of critics who contend the internet creates a life of social isolation and harms people’s holistic health. However, some counter that the web cemetery can reduce social isolation through their ability to enhance relationships between the dead and their survivors and among the living (P. Roberts 2004). Others claim that the web cemetery is a site of meaningful personal expression and community building, offering researchers new sources to learn more about modern ritualizing, grief, and relationships (de Vries and Rutherford 2004). Their application in the history of sport is non-existent beyond one recent doctoral thesis (D. C. Galindo 2024), but this may be because web cemeteries have only existed for the last quarter of a century. However, their social significance has grown, and the web cemetery has evolved from being strictly presented on funeral home and newspaper websites to having an influential presence across other platforms such as Legacy and social media. For example, Facebook recently added the option for users to change the status of personal profiles of the deceased as a form of commemoration in what they officially deem memorialized accounts (Facebook 2019).

At some point in our lives, we will write an obituary or visit a web cemetery. Engaging with such processes can evoke profound emotions and contemplations. For survivors, writing an obituary and contributing to a web cemetery guestbook is an introspective and challenging endeavor as they sift through their memories and impressions of the deceased to represent them meaningfully (de Vries and Rutherford 2004). This intricate process is further complicated by the need for contributors to remain sensitive to the emotional states of fellow survivors. Regardless, contributors sometimes post on multiple occasions and even years apart, conversing with the deceased or fellow survivors, showcasing how web cemeteries foster storytelling and social and parasocial relationships (D. C. Galindo 2024). These considerations are crucial for historians. Researching in this domain is undoubtedly complex and can be isolating, but the intimacy, sentimentality, and dialogic nature of web cemeteries provide historians with a compelling vantage point to explore the lives of ordinary people. Provided those studied are granted their fully complicated humanity and represented with respect, historians can ensure ethicality and support one of the web cemetery’s primary purposes: establishing a written record of the deceased for posterity.

Now that the sources have been defined and contextualized, a discussion of possible applications is provided below for historians looking for an innovative approach to their work. Such an approach is conducive to sporting communities and fandoms, but these sources and applications can inform any contemporary historical research project concerned with uncovering ordinary people’s lives and values.4

3. Discussion of Possible Methods

3.1. Prosopography

Prosopography is a method adept at managing considerable volumes of data based on a questionnaire for historians intending to produce a large-scale, quantitative, or macrosocial study (Verboven et al. 2007; Oldfield 2014). Broadly defined, prosopography is the collective study of a group of actors with common characteristics, and it has been used in research for over a century. It differs from other biographical methods and is limited in identifying and explaining ideas, passions, motivations, and personal experiences (Jockers 2013; Oldfield 2014; Day 2018). However, Stone notes it can help discover a “universe to be studied” (Stone 1971). New applications have shown how sport historians can utilize the method (Keats-Rohan 2006; Oldfield 2015). Some historians used prosopography to describe the characteristics of sporting communities in nineteenth and twentieth-century Britain to contextualize and interrogate traditional gender roles (Day 2018; Taylor 2018). Practitioners agree that it is not enough to explain the characteristics of a group and that this method requires historical interpretation to draw meaning from the collected sources (Jockers 2013; Oldfield 2014; Day 2018; Taylor 2018). Prosopography is conducive to establishing, exploring, examining, and interpreting any sporting community or fandom within a broader social and historical context. This method helps reveal people’s shared characteristics, experiences, and values. While most historians rely on census data to apply this method, using cyber obituaries as sources can modify and complicate prosopographical applications. Recent histories on sports fandom used a prosopography of nearly two thousand cyber obituaries of fans to contextualize and investigate a fan community (David Galindo 2020; D. C. Galindo 2024). Given their respective natures, pairing cyber obituaries and prosopography can balance the quantitative and intimate and offer sport historians a new window to explore the past. For the purposes of application, a prosopographical questionnaire example is provided in

Table 1. A Prosopographical Questionnaire (D. C. Galindo 2024).

Category	Aspect	Purpose
Personal Information	Name Life Dates (birth, death) Age (at the time of death) Gender Race/Ethnicity Marital Status Religion Education Occupation Geographic Location (zip code) Median Household Income Politics	To identify, examine, and interpret the demographics of Spurs fans within the broader social and historical context and to situate them in the historiography.
Spurs Fandom	Season ticket holder Baseline Bum Elaborative commentary on fandom Familial connections	To identify the extremes of the Spurs fandom, humanize supporters, and uncover fan agency and the multitude of personal communities within Spurs fandom.

(D. C. Galindo 2024).

3.2. Collective Biography

If prosopography’s quantitative and impersonal nature seems unappealing, historians can utilize a collective biography informed by web cemeteries apart or combined with a prosopography of cyber obituaries. The usefulness of collective biography in sport history research is well-documented (Oldfield 2014, 2015, 2021). It provides a qualitative focus that has the potential to develop historical interpretations of marginalized communities (Evans 2015). Compared to a prosopography of cyber obituaries, analyzing and synthesizing web cemeteries simultaneously expands and narrows the scope of research. On one hand, exploring web cemeteries facilitates an in-depth analysis of people’s lives and the experiences, values, and grieving process of their personal communities. Potentially illuminating how sport, fandom, and web cemeteries played a significant role in fostering and enhancing personal communities and how they can function as tools for coping with bereavement. The photographs, videos, and guestbook entries in web cemeteries are beneficial for these purposes. On the other hand, it adequately limits the scope to a shortlist of relevant people to allow for a rigorous qualitative analysis. Collective biography is ideally fitted to identify, describe, and explain the subcommunities of personal networks within a larger sporting community or fandom. Perhaps more importantly, it facilitates the discovery of marginalized communities such as sports fans with disability (D. C. Galindo 2025). Employing web cemeteries in a collective biography can assist in ensuring such groups are included in a field that has only recently begun discussing them (Lomax 2000; Southby 2013a, 2013b; Paramio-Salcines et al. 2014, 2015; Baynton 2016; García et al. 2016; Huang 2019; Penfold and Kitchin 2020; Brown 2020; Peers 2023). A specific example of a collective biography of web cemeteries can be found in chapter four, “Fighting Against Oblivion: The Web Cemeteries of Spurs Fans,” in Galindo’s doctoral thesis (D. C. Galindo 2024).

3.3. Biography

The biography may be the most popular historical method in the discipline’s history. While undoubtedly useful and elemental to the field’s development, justifiable criticisms have been levied against the approach over the last several decades, and yet they remain hugely popular, especially to broader audiences (Barman 2010). Web cemeteries can provide a place for historians to begin a biography. Although web cemeteries do not provide comprehensive enough coverage to inform the entirety of the work, they can provide valuable and substantial investigative clues for historians. A sport historian recently explained how these clues include key demographic information and a summation of a person’s life, as well as their next of kin and broader personal community, all of whom are critical points of contact to a biographical project, sporting or otherwise, in its infancy (Ozyurtcu 2025). Historians often begin their research by searching through physical and digital archives. While useful, they have limitations and dead ends. Web cemeteries can serve as a conduit to continue a project that may have otherwise been incomplete or nonviable. As shown in chapter five, “The Extremes of Spurs Fandom: Fifty Years of the Baseline Bums,” of Galindo’s doctoral thesis (2024), analyzing web cemeteries facilitated the discovery of George Valle, a longtime San Antonio Spurs fan. His web cemetery guestbook included extensive commentary from survivors which showcase connections to the Spurs official supporters’ group, the Baseline Bums, authentic friendships, and shared religious and cultural values (Valle 2015).

In a web cemetery guestbook entry, a fellow Baseline Bum shared,

I remember great years with the Bums—15 in all. Those years included many get togethers featuring Bums, players, and George’s unbeatable BBQ. My mouth waters at the thought. BBQ wasn’t his only talent though. He was committed to the Spurs and I think he only missed one or two games over the years we were there… You always could count on the big guy for help when it was needed. I don’t know how he managed to keep a smile on his face considering the many issues he dealt with as Bums President. He’s a good guy that you loved to be around.

Another friend stated,

RIP GEORGE! Always had a kind word & a good story for me when I would see him at his work place. A great friend, the number one Spurs Fan & King of the Baseline Bums. He was a special man and will be missed by many. Gilbert: Leigh Ann & I were so saddened to learn of your brother’s passing. We send our most heart felt (sic) condolences.

The Mejia family commented,

GOD BLESS BIG GEORGE! Our deepest condolences to George’s familia (Spanish word for family). My heart is sad on losing such a great guy who treated the Mejia family well when we arrived in Devine. I will never forget our breakfast club and all the trips to Spurs games meeting fun folks in the Baseline Bums section. Yes we will miss George but he (sic) now in better hands.

Long-time friends and fellow Bums Robert and Adela Munoz also shared their thoughts,

Our most sincere condolences to the Valle Family. George was a great guy and a most dedicated Spurs Baseline Bum. We sat with him through every single game on the very top row of the Baseline Bum Section in the ’70 s. We were the rowdiest crowd ever, along with my brother Dancing Harry Ernest Munoz, he has since passed away a year ago this past June. Todays (sic) Baseline Bums don’t compare to us when it comes to making noise for the Spurs. We enjoyed many a beer with George at the Lone Star Pavilon (sic) before and after each game. Believe me George will be greatly missed. He is resting with our Lord now. Blessings to all the Valle Family.

Along with these valuable insights, web cemeteries make the pursuit of the deceased’s survivors possible, allowing historians to collect primary sources beyond archives in the form of personal belongings or ethnographic firsthand materials such as oral histories and yarning dialogues.

3.4. Oral History

Practitioners of oral history have elucidated how this method can produce sources worthy of historical analysis, the critical difference between memory and history, and also how this practice can elaborate on the approach of “history from the bottom up” as ordinary people became more a part of the narrative that has previously marginalized them (Portelli 1981, 1997; Terkel 1970, 1984). Portelli suggests that oral history accounts, while sometimes inaccurate, are sources of significant meaning that exist as dialogic discourses through what interviewees say and what historians do in how together they “speak to each other about the past” and explains the main difference between storytelling (focused on the individual) and “history-telling” (focused on connecting the individual to societal transformations). Portelli admits oral history “can never be told without taking sides” (Portelli 1997). This is why Frisch defined transcripts generated from interviews as objects that should be evaluated as any other primary source, with the responsibility being put on the historian to evaluate the memories collected to determine their reliability—a shortcoming he often observed in his critical review of previous work (Frisch 1988). More recently, Skillen and Osborne discussed the importance of oral history to sport history, noting that women have often been marginalized and that oral histories must be more easily accessible in public history forums (visual or auditory) (Skillen and Osborne 2015). Other critiques of oral history, such as the limitations on memory and the focus on the individual, can be addressed through the accumulation of several interviews from various perspectives. Informed by web cemeteries, historians can identify survivors of the dead and potentially interview them. Interviewing a group in a more conversational long-term format has also been a valuable methodological approach in sport history.

3.5. Yarning

While oral history is a more structured approach focused on systematically recording personal testimonies, yarning is an informal, conversational method used to build relationships and share stories. Yarning as a historical methodology is an Indigenous conversational practice used to gather and share knowledge through respectful, informal storytelling that centers on relationality, trust, and lived experience (Dean 2010). As with oral history, web cemeteries can inform who historians yarn with. Historians have utilized yarning to combat traditional archival research that often contains colonial biases. In particular, Australian historians have embraced this practice to decolonize historical interpretations and uncover the experiences of Aboriginal peoples. Although yarning has received criticism from some historians and is a time-consuming process compared with other traditional historical applications, its methodological utility has been demonstrated and is ideally fitted to be used with web cemeteries (Osmond and Phillips 2019). As yarning and web cemeteries have important and perhaps differing stories to tell, much can be learned from synthesizing these sources to gain deeper insights into how sport has influenced the lives of ordinary people. Yarning can also be contrasted with traditional historical approaches on the same topic within the same disseminated space to highlight the differences in the stories archives and people previously silenced have to tell. Sport historians have produced such a comparative case study illuminating how yarning can necessarily complicate historical understanding (Osmond and Phillips 2019).

3.6. Autoethnography

As explained at various junctures in this piece, inevitably, everyone confronts death, whether as survivors or those who are dying. While the bereavement process is difficult to endure, the attempt to commemorate the deceased can be equally challenging. This lived experience has affirmed my appreciation and respect for the novel historical sources and approaches discussed in this piece. As much as the historian strives for objectivity and separation, the historian and human are inextricably linked; prolific historians have noted in their seminal works that you cannot have one without the other (Carr 1961; Gaddis 2004). Therefore, historians of any variety can lean into autoethnography to develop interpretations about the past, openly and honestly informed by personal experiences. Sport historians have employed this method to expose gender inequalities in sport and explore the meanings of sports fandom (McParland 2012; Popovic 2013; O’Hallarn 2020). Combining the sociopsychological with the historical offers a challenging but fascinating frontier for sport historians. Analyzing web cemeteries offers historians the opportunity to connect their personal experiences of sport, fandom, grief, and commemoration with those of others, and situate them within a broader context to better understand changes over time. A specific example of this can be observed in chapter four of my doctoral thesis, “Fighting Against Oblivion: The Web Cemeteries of Spurs Fans.” There, I include my mother’s obituary, which I authored. Her web cemetery showcases a familial fandom I discovered across numerous personal communities (Figure 1) (Dawn Galindo 2021; D. C. Galindo 2024). Sport historians can surely discover other such shared familial affinities in web cemeteries when researching athletes, coaches, fans, and those who study them.

4. Conclusions: The Value of Web Cemeteries to Sport History

The applications and approaches suggested above are in no way exhaustive. While such methodologies can be used apart and in combination, the possibilities with cyber obituaries and web cemeteries are vast. It is recommended that historians continue the critical work of researching everyday sorts of people and communities through non-traditional sources to complicate understandings of them. The accessibility and usefulness of web cemeteries provide a place to start for historians attempting to discover persons or communities of any variety. The vast and largely unexplored frontier of web cemeteries offers plenty for researchers. As one of the first examples of incorporating web cemeteries in historical research, this article provides a new path to develop interpretations of the human experience. Sport historians may find these sources and methodologies particularly useful when studying athletes, coaches, and fans provided the usability of digital platforms such as Legacy. Such a historical exploration allows us to see ordinary people’s lived experiences and values. Consciousness, sentience, and mortality define our humanity, imploring us to seek meaning and belonging in our fleeting existence; this paper suggests how historians can discover how some found these elusive elements through sport and fandom using web cemeteries. Despite their occasional hagiographic tendencies, web cemeteries possess distinctive functionality, sentimentality, intimacy, and liminality that render them culturally significant historical sources. These elements encourage historians to humanize their subjects, promoting more empathetic and nuanced interpretations. By approaching web cemeteries with sensitivity and striving to avoid misrepresentation while affirming and amplifying the personal narratives of their subjects, historians can generate new and profound insights into the human experience and historically marginalized communities.5