I would agree that using DNA testing is not the be all and end all, BUt it can ver very useful. Let me give you an example of how it can be used to compliment traditional research. Many years ago my mother Kathleen, now dead, started our family history, and considering the availability of records at the time did a good job with most sections of her and our Barry family. Before she became to ill with dementia I took over from her. So now having access to on line services, I started over, and soon discovered the family she thought was ours was not infact ours at all, by glaring differences in the baptism, DOB etc. with the person who would have been my great grand father, born in Ireland. So by a process of elimination I arrived at several potential families with the correct father son relationship and estimated DOB, and from Ireland. To be honest I can't recall why I started in ernest with one particular family, but I spent a lot of time, and money on certificates, and discovered that my great great grand father Garret Barry was a street trader, and was very mobile with in Ireland, BUT he did not register the death of his wife Catherine Toner in Belfast 1879 but a son previously unknown to me did. As the two other sons did not have many desendants, maybe Patrick would lead me to a new place. I set about finding more and eventually found a marriage that fitted to basic senario, and possible time frame, and obtained a church extract which names all parents. Initially I found a marriage and a single son, and then in the 1901 census he suddenly had re married taking his son with him to Dublin. He set about making a typically large R.C. family with plenty of sons, and they bridged that difficult time in records of after the 1911 census. However, I persisted and found family in Dublin, and several locations in England. The difficult part was bridging the information gap to the present day, but luckily the newspaper obituaries yealded information about the passing of the suspected family member and a location in Bolton England. Through FB and 192.com I made contact and the son of one of the recent deaths was interested to know more, and readily agreed to take a Y DNA test at FTDNA. So all my research until this point had been based on a probable senario, and if this DNA match didn't work then its back to square one. Well obviously as I'm writing this, the young man with a Barry surname from Bolton did match me 36/37 STR markers. I had in the mean time expanded my testing to Family Finder an autosomal test, 111 Markers , and Big Y, so I set about finding out more, I selectively tested SNP - L21, Z253, L1066, CTS9881, and finally BY3930 only positive for myself and one other Barry surnames individual, so I was home and dry, I also extended his STR markers to 67 and we are still only one marker different, and we share segments on various chromosome in accordance to out relative relationship of thrid cousins. I have, along the way become an admin at two FTDNA projects the Z253 , and the Barry surname project. I regularly use Gedmatch to try to break through my brick wall, as I still do not know about the marriage of Garrett and Catherine Toner, DOB of both, home lands etc. and the DOB of the pivotal Patrick. the trail goes to Glasgow, and Edinburgh where Garrett took his family after Catherine's death, and yet another son James registered Garrett's death also previously unknown, but I'm working on all lines of enquirey. I was at Birmingham NEC a few weeks ago and on one stall there was a sign about the travelling people and their history, so having read the mention above I'm interested to know more, could my street traders also have be travellers, and how do I try to find out?