Legacy.com was founded in 1998 and is the world's largest commercial provider of online memorials. The Web site hosts obituaries and memorials for more than 70 percent of all U.S. deaths. Legacy.com hosts obituaries for more than three-quarters of the 100 largest newspapers in the U.S., by circulation. The site attracts more than 14 million unique visitors per month and is among the top 100 trafficked Web sites in the world.

Legacy.com attaches a publicly accessible guest book to most of the obituaries it hosts, which enables anyone with an Internet connection to pay tribute to someone whose obituary appears in one of Legacy.com's affiliate newspapers. Legacy.com now reviews more than 700,000 guest book entries each month. About 75 percent of all guest books receive entries. The company is approaching 25 million guest book entries on its site.

Legacy.com is a privately held company based in Evanston, Illinois

Evanston, Illinois

Evanston is a suburban municipality in Cook County, Illinois 12 miles north of downtown Chicago, bordering Chicago to the south, Skokie to the west, and Wilmette to the north, with an estimated population of 74,360 as of 2003. It is one of the North Shore communities that adjoin Lake Michigan...

 with more than 750 newspaper affiliates in North America, Europe and Australia, including the New York Times

The New York Times

The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

, Boston Globe, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune

Chicago Tribune

The Chicago Tribune is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, and the flagship publication of the Tribune Company. Formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" , it remains the most read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region and is...

, Los Angeles Times

Los Angeles Times

The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....

 and Manchester Evening News

Manchester Evening News

The Manchester Evening News is a regional daily newspaper covering Greater Manchester in the United Kingdom. It is published every day except Sunday and is owned by Trinity Mirror plc following its sale by Guardian Media Group in early 2010. It has an average daily circulation of 90,973 copies...

.