StudioBlue ([log in to unmask]) wrote:
: (updated)
: Maybe I shouldn't repeat this, but...
: Last year the California Palace of the Legion of Honor finished its new
: wing. While preparing the site, a graveyard was found. It was
: French-American dating from late last century. New burial sites were set
: up at another location and the plan was to move the graves (approx.
800).
: Some of the bodies were to be studied in the process of moving them.
(DNA,
: disease, etc.) The "collection" was on hold pending grants to do the
: studies. The bodies were all removed in a single evening by parties
: unknown!

This is largely incorrect.  What was found was NOT a French-American
cemetary, but a potter's field containing burials from a wide range of
ethnicities, and a few medical-school ex-specimens as well, interred
above a few of the burials.  New burial sites were NOT set up; the
intention was for the remains to eventually be reinterred in a mass
grave.  The bodies have never been released for study, and they were
never removed in a single evening by parties unknown; they are, in fact,
in the care of the SF Coroner's office, where they've been all along.
The issue has not been one of lack of grants, but whether the SF
Coroner felt that study was justified and ethical, or if it was simply
too politically sensitive.  The French Consulate did go on record as
protesting the treatment of the burials on the grounds that some may
have been French, but proof was not forthcoming.  Historical records
show that many different charitable organizations had control of burials
in the cemetary, but none appear to have kept such records as might
allow identification on these grounds.

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