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CHICAGO — Human remains strewn amid overgrown weeds have deteriorated into jumbled bones. Paper records in a rusted metal cabinet have dissolved into dust.

Days after horrified relatives learned that former workers at a historic black cemetery near Chicago allegedly dug up hundreds of bodies in a scheme to resell grave plots, relatives are learning that DNA likely won’t help them find their loved ones. The piles of bones and deteriorated records may make identifying many remains impossible.

“Identifying everyone would be a tremendous long shot,” John Howard, president of the National Association of Medical Examiners, said this week.

Officials estimate that at least 300 of 100,000 graves were tampered with at the Burr Oak Cemetery in Alsip, Ill., which is the burial place of several famous Americans, including civil rights-era lynching victim Emmett Till. Four former workers are charged with dumping exhumed bodies in a deserted field the size of four square blocks in order to resell grave plots. Till’s grave was not disturbed.

In the weeks since authorities announced the graveyard scheme, thousands of relatives have flocked to the cemetery looking for answers. Some, who knew exactly where their family members were buried, reported missing gravestones or unkempt plots — but many others couldn’t figure out where the relatives were buried because the cemetery’s records were in such disarray.

Forensic experts say it’s possible to extract enough viable DNA from many of the skulls, teeth and large bones. But investigators warn that it may not do much good because in order to find matches, scientists would then also have to test relatives from all of those buried at Burr Oak.

“We would theoretically have to get families of all 100,000 people that are buried there (to provide DNA samples),” said FBI spokesman Ross Rice. “It’s insurmountable almost.”

But even if all families were tested, many of those buried were from the same family and the DNA collected might not clearly identify exactly which relatives the bones belong to.

There’s another wrinkle: Thousands of bones may be mixed together. Investigators say it may be impossible to sift through them to match them to specific people and return complete remains to a single grave.

“The family might want to know they have their Uncle Joe back in the ground in one place,” said former New York City chief medical examiner Michael Baden, who helped identify the bodies of more than 1,000 people killed by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. “But if families think that every single bone can be identified, that’s unrealistic.”

Ralph Thompson Jr., whose mother, father and son are among six generations of family members buried at Burr Oak, is one of those relatives hoping for answers. But the self-described junkie for TV crime shows says he knows this is a case where the mysteries won’t be solved so easily, and families may have to settle for a mass burial for their loved ones.

“TV is TV. We’re always looking for a good ending,” said Thompson, 41, of the Chicago suburb of Elgin. “But in real life, this is a whole different ball game.”