That's right. Once you have a replicating strand that's modular (linearly able to glue end-to-end) it can also recombine randomly with other completely differen

That's right. Once you have a replicating strand that's modular (linearly able to glue end-to-end) it can also recombine randomly with other completely different replicators to see if the "offspring" can replicate. We know for a fact major sections of DNA are shared among lots of different organisms, so we know this did happen a lot during evolution.