Revisiting DNA

[Phoenix]

I'm only really interested in my maternal grandmother's family. After being told to suck eggs on FB, I have gone back and can find matches (with help from my cousin's DNA) for all my 5th great grandparents save the illegitimate branch (but if Edmund's father WAS the Spanish gipsy the family said - and Grannie was known as Brownie because she was so dark - I'm not getting a flicker from the ethnicity).

I cannot see that DNA will help me find the father of someone born in 1840.

Given that everybody in Norfolk seems to have married their cousins, I'm not really convinced I'm not looking at local rather than family DNA.

Is anyone finding autosomal DNA useful for anything but the very closest of relations?