While DNA can help identify your ancestral heritage, it does little to trace your actual ancestry. That has to be done through paper records.
One important thing DNA testing CAN do is help you identify those who share your line. After 20+ years of searching Ancestry, Family Search, etc., I have run out of "sure things." I mean enough documentation that corroborates itself for the facts to be ascertained. I now have a lot of "maybes;" those documents where maybe its my ancestors and maybe its not. Finding those with a common lines enables you to share documentation.
Some of these DNA groups are large and well organized. My last name does not have such group, so I think the benefits would be minimal. One of the other lines in my tree DOES have that kind of group. While I can't afford DNA testing, if I could, I would likely offer to pay for a distant cousin I found in my search who belongs in that line. It would probably go a long way in breaking down some brick walls.
The internet is wonderful, but less than five (5) percent of all records are online. Most have to be tracked where your ancestors lived.
That is very true. But sometimes those paper trails just end. I have a line I was researching that spent several decades in a particular county in Illinois. I posted a question in a genealogy forum, and it caught someone's eye. Next thing you know I have the help of not one, but TWO people from the local historical society. Unfortunately there was little I didn't already have. I'm afraid that I'm the victim of natural disasters that destroyed records. I also suspect that some of my ancestors may have been buried on the farm with no lasting markers.
The saga of getting my first novel on Kindle
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