Should one have a DNA test? That is the 200 US$ Question! Here is my story, hopefully it will help someone. What DNA does not tell you: It will not tell you directly where in Ireland, township, County, Province or Kingdom your ancestor once lived, at least not directly. If you do comparisons with other folks with a similar DNA you may be able to figure that out but it still takes a lot of effort and it is not an exact science. DNA changes over the generations due to mutations so one may expect to find as many as 5 mutations in 1500 years or so of separations between families. So, do not expect an exact marker by marker match. You might get lucky and closely match someone who knows where in Ireland their family came from, and determine where you family is from but that appears unlikely to me. For example I have a Conner born 1753 in Co. Dublin, he matches an O'Connor born in 1790 from County Cork, with only 3 of 37 markers, mutations separations, he also matches a Murphy born 1815 in County Wexford with only 3 of 37 markers, mutations separation. So where is the family from? A search of naming patterns say they may be from County Cork. But in trying to figure out the scheme of things, I have found a branch of the Murphy family descended from the same Gaelic family name as the O'Connor family in Kingdom of Offaly back in about 400AD...so we may be from County Offaly. There is lots of time for people to move and get displaced between 400 and 1700s. The Kingdom of Offaly got broken up into different county names in about the mid 1500s or so by the Plantation System. Then the county names have changed over the years and one has to try and figure out where to look and what records may exist. Keating's history of Ireland Vol 4 has been helpful but it does not tell you what county you should search. There is a lot of variability on a family name in the DNA markers. If you look at this site (loads slowly) you can see that the Lawrence Conner does not seem to be similar to any other of the Connor/O'Connor/Conner names listed. LINK: http://www.worldfamilies.net/surnames/c/conner/results.html You can wander around the site by clicking on the top icons and find some other family names and where they are from in Ireland as a part of other studies. This site is typical of most "Family Name" DNA sites, but may have more people participating in the studies and more discussion on the site. There are search engines that allow you to search for exact matches, or similar DNA makers without regard to name, or to find others who have posted their DNA with the same name, but not matching your DNA. DNA testing is only another Tool in the search for ancestors. To me it only has value in comparative analysis. It has helped me eliminate a lot of places to search, but it has not provided definitive answers.