I have given some thought to this. I was walking around a graveyard the other day and it is obvious many were /are forgotten especially the ones dated to the early 1800's. I thought to myself, is this it?
Now, I've also read that because the soil around here is so acidic that most of the people buried during the Civil War are all gone, absolutely nothing left of them underground, only a forgotten, weathered stone above ground...
Burial in a pile baking soda at high altitude has the potential of turning you into a future archaeological find. :')
I am researching my Northern Neck roots (that sounds weird!) hoping to be able to prove a link to Jamestown before the 2007 celebration. Not easy because the Stafford courthouse was burned during the Civil War, as was the plantation with the family bible with the extensive family tree. (Durned Yankees!)
Learned yesterday that there is an old Peyton family cemetary near Colonial Beach that has 40-50 graves with no legible markers. God only knows who is buried there -- could be the master and the mistress, could be the slaves, could be someone passing by. Nobody is going to exhume them any time soon.
But they are digging up people in Jamestown.