A fire destroyed plot plans dating from before 1940 for the older part of the Wanaka cemetery - then known as Pembroke Cemetery - so details of the location of graves without headstones were lost.
The Unmarked Graves Committee, spearheaded by Wanaka resident Loris King, was formed in 2008 and set about raising funds for a memorial wall, which would permanently and publicly acknowledge the names of those people whose lives, until now, had only been recorded in dusty old documents.
"People wouldn't have even known they're buried there," Mrs King said.
Grants and donations from the Central Lakes Trust, Upper Clutha Historical Records Society, Queenstown Lakes District Council, Upper Clutha Lions and the Upper Clutha Presbyterian Church parish have funded the memorial wall project, which will cost about $11,000 to construct.
Mrs King said 99 names would be recorded on a series of bronze plaques mounted on a circular stone wall, while two families had arranged for separate plaques with more detailed inscriptions about their ancestors.
Mrs King paid tribute to Wanaka woman Lynette Duncan, a member of the New Zealand Society of Genealogists, who had put hours of research into the project.
"It's thanks to her that this has happened and that it's happened in other Central Otago cemeteries as well."
Using Central Otago genealogy group death records, Mrs Duncan has created databases for the Roxburgh cemetery and cemeteries throughout the Upper Clutha, and helped with several others in the district. Her volunteer work in the field has spanned about 10 years.
The unmarked graves memorial wall is being constructed next to another memorial built this year to commemorate stillborn and premature babies. Mrs King hoped the project would be finished before Christmas.
