Despite many years searching in the attempt to push back my Claxton Essex antecedence beyond my great great grandfather's marriage at South Ockendon in 1832 I opted to try the DNA route. I joined the FTDNA Claxton project and had the 32 marker test. To cut a long story short my branch of the Claxton's seems to have its routes firmly planted in the Stoke DNA stream some generations previous. So far there do not appear to be any 'direct' matches that would identify my great great grandfather Thomas Claxton's lineage although there are three matches in the late 1700's and early 1800's. Was it worth it? Without taking the DNA test I would not have identified the Stokes link and as has been said elsewhere with more and more testing then the chances increase over time. A warning though. Some of the 'DNA' trees posted on the various project sites reminded me of the trees that were available on the old IGI site - namely they didn't bear too much scrutinising. Regards Andy Claxton