Scandanavian? Who knew??

So I finally got the results of the Ancestry.com DNA test I did recently.  And I found the results to be quite interesting and not really what I expected at all.  Since what I have discovered during my research shows that 1) most branches of my family have been here in the US for generations; 2) most of those branches seem to have originated somewhere in the British Isles, predominantly England, with the odd Irish or Scottish ancestor; and 3) most of the branches that are not British in origin were Germanic, I was a little surprised by what the results revealed.

My results showed merely a 43% genetic British Isles ethnicity, which was lower than I expected.  What really surprised me was that following right behind that, with a 42% genetic ethnicity, was Scandanavian.  Huh?  Scandanavian?  What the heck?  I have not traced anyone to Scandanavian countries, at least not back the 200-300 years, I've mostly managed.  I did hit Switzerland once, but that's not Scandanavian.  However, it turns out that if your ancestors are from the British Isles, you are definitely likely to show Scandanavian ethnicity, thanks to those marauding Vikings, the wandering Goths (Sweden), and the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes (Denmark).  Some, such as the Goths, Angles, and Saxons, made their way to England from Germany.

So I'm guessing that a combination of invasions by Scandanavians into Germanic regions, followed by later invasions of those peoples into the British Isles, and the original Viking and Jute invasions, lead to that large amount of Scandanavian ancestry that I had no idea about.  It also probably explains the lack of central European ethnicity I expected to find with the German ancestors I've identified.  I admit, however, that I am still a little perplexed by the 8% Southern European DNA identified, which indicates Italy, Spain, and Portugal.  I definitely haven't identified anyone to account for that.

If you've been adding up percentages, you'll find that there is still 7% that is unaccounted for.  Right now, it's listed as "Unknown".  Ancestry.com tells me that  "This means that small traces of a specific genetic population have been found in your DNA, but the probability levels were too low to pinpoint it to a specific ethnicity. This is not uncommon, and as more genetic signatures are discovered with a higher confidence level, we may be able to update this ‘uncertain’ percentage of your ethnicity over time."

I'm anxious to see how the results are updated as more and more people do the test.  I'd kind of like to know what my unknown portions are.  I am a bit disappointed that Ancestry hasn't found anyone more closely related to me than a 5th or 6th cousin at this point.  It would be interesting to discover an unknown relative or two.