findagrave.com

This is a place to look at pictures of famous people's gravesites, to leave cyber-flowers for your favorites and even submit pictures of markers of your nonfamous relatives.

Jim Tipton, 33, the site's founder and manager, grew up in Denver and studied music, but it was his love of things technical that got him started on his Web site back in 1995.

"I initially put up a picture of a headstone," he says by phone from Salt Lake City. "It just said 'Waldo,' and I said, 'I found him.' A few people sent it around."

Tipton had been visiting famous graves for a while, so he put some of those pictures up, too, along with some bios. Site visitors started submitting their own photos of stars' final resting places.

"It really snowballed, and now we're sitting at about 10 million names."

The site attracts about 45,000 visitors a day.

Find a Grave is so popular that Tipton was able to quit his job in database work five years ago to concentrate on the site.

Tipton said a lot of people are using the site to find family members.

"When you find that person, you can see the other names in the cemetery, and you can start to put connections together," he said.

If you know where your Aunt Thelma is buried but can't get there yourself, a Find a Grave "photo volunteer" might be able to go and take a picture for you. Nationwide the site has 20,000 to 30,000 such volunteers.

What gets a person interested in seeking out celebrity graves?

"It's the thrill of the hunt," Tipton says. "You find this name and you see it etched in stone, and it's this iconic name like Al Capone or Marilyn Monroe, and you realize you're within 6 feet of that person. It's kind of a neat feeling."

His site does not, by the way, post gruesome death photos.

Tipton plans to be cremated when the time comes.

"I just told my wife she could scatter me wherever she wants," he said. "I'm not a particularly spiritual person."

findadeath.com

Scott Michaels started "Find a Death" about five years ago when he was living in London - several years after Princess Diana was killed.

"I went over to Paris to check out the tunnel where she was killed," he said. "I posted the pictures on the Internet, since that was what I was interested in. Since I was in the sightseeing industry already, I decided to start putting together a site that chronicled the last days (of celebrities) with photographs."

Want to see Jimi Hendrix's death certificate, or Roddy McDowall's mailbox, or even (morbid alert!) a pic of River Phoenix in his coffin? Maybe you want to purchase a small piece of the plane John Denver died in. It's all there. Add in some witty commentary from Michaels and you have one busy site. About 10,000 people a day stop by Find a Death.

"I think the reason that it strikes a chord with people is that I put things in the story that are interesting to me," Michaels says.

He gets a lot of nice e-mails and some that are not so nice.

"A woman just recently wrote me and said, 'I hope the people who are close to you die.' I said, 'Well, OK ... they will ... eventually,'" he said. "I've gotten a bit thicker-skinned about stuff like that."

Michaels grew up in Detroit, right by one of the most dangerous intersections in the city. One wrecked car sat there for days.

"And finally they came and opened up the trunk," he said, "and there was a person in the trunk."

Michaels' favorite death location happens to be the first he visited, Princess Di's.

"It was really quite moving being right there."

Michaels' main job is as a tour guide for - what else? - the Hollywood spots where celebs drew their last breaths. The most popular: the locales where Marilyn Monroe and James Dean died and the site of the Manson murders. (Details at dearlydepartedtours.com.)

What is Michaels' advice for people wanting to start their own Web sites?

"This is going to sound really silly, cliche almost," he said. "I follow what interests me. My ex-boyfriend (Graham Norton) was quite wealthy, and I realized that money doesn't really change much. It just makes other things silly-important. I'm not motivated by money. I'm motivated by what I love. I pursue what I love. I'm lucky. I'm the luckiest guy in the world 'cause I'm doing what I love."

A death expert's words to live by.

To reach Eric Winkler, call (816) 234-4406 or send e-mail to ewinkler@kcstar.com.

Photos (5, color & b/w)

Jim Tipton

Jim Tipton, founder of findagrave.com, helps people solve the mysteries of where to find dead relatives or celebrities. He also took these photos of Marilyn Monroe's gravesite and Frank Sinatra's headstone.

Scott Michaels