A Papamoa woman is urging families to check loved one's graves at 18th Avenue's Presbyterian Cemetery after finding a relative's headstone unreadable from unauthorised waterblasting.

Nicola Geenty found her great uncle's headstone had been badly damaged by waterblasting undertaken by an unemployed Tauranga man at the cemetery.

Nicola Geenty's great uncle John Dick's grave, a few months ago.

Nicola Geenty's great uncle John Dick's grave yesterday.

Kelly McLean thought he was doing a good deed when he used a waterblaster to clean graves at the city cemetery earlier this month.

After two mornings spent cleaning on May 12-13 he was asked to stop by Tauranga City Council officials due to the gravesite's delicate materials.

As part of research into the family's genealogy, Nicola has been visiting the cemetery during the last few months to find her great uncle John Dick's grave in particular.

'I spent quite a bit of time wandering around the graves to find it – and definitely I've noticed a lot of the stone's writing is no longer legible or the stone's writing is imprinted – it has paint on the letters – and the paint has come off.”

'So it is really, really disappointing – I‘d seen the comments on SunLive's Facebook page and you never want to put down someone who's trying to do something good, but it has damaged the grave.”

Nicola says while people have been praising Kelly for his efforts, she says 'it's really sad it's destroyed that record of future generations of people trying to research their loved ones and relatives”.

While some older graves might not have living descendants, Nicola says this isn't always the case – and her great uncle died early in his life and still has a daughter living over the other side of the Kaimai Ranges.

Nicola is now contacting her to see if she'd like the headstone repaired.

'I have been in touch with his [John's] daughter – he's got children and grandchildren still alive – and next time I hear from her I will let her know what's happened.”

Nicola says John was her mother's uncle and she believes he died very young –on July 17, 1952. John's wife Florence Dick has since died.

Having a look around the cemetery, Nicola says the brown stone seems to be more damaged than other colours for some reason.

'The motley, brown stone perhaps is a softer stone, as it seems like on the other ones the writing has worn off a little, but the brown ones – some of the grain has lifted off so it's now looking quite coarse.”

Nicola has been told to use a soft cloth and water to clean her father's grave, but says repair work needs to be done by professionals.

'Someone needs to research the best way to clean these older graves – it's just such a shame.

'The history of our country is in those stones – and what is so important about those older stones is you can only get so much information from Births, Deaths and Marriages and Census records and Electoral rolls.

'But if you go and have a look at these headstones – often the older ones have information on them that you can't get anywhere else, and it tells a story about that person.”

Read more about council's cleaning methods here.