What would you do with a giant QR code—you know, the kind of URL you can scan with your phone—of your DNA ancestry? When I was asked this question, I didn't know the answer. Does anyone really have a need or want for a huge QR code that lets people see details about your family history? And for $440 (or more) a pop?

Balk at the price all you want, but someone is apparently buying these things. The company behind them, DNA 11, creates a number of different personalized portraits (some of which Ars has given away in the past, in fact), including standard DNA portraits, fingerprint portraits, and kiss portraits. Once you send in your required sample and choose a color, the company prints it out on canvas for you to hang anywhere or give as a gift. Does it seem a little self-centered to hang a portrait of your own DNA structure on the wall of your own home? Yes, yes it does.

But the DNA Ancestry portrait, which differs from the DNA portrait, is a slightly different story. After placing your order for a DNA kit and sending back your sample, DNA 11 creates an art piece that represents your maternal lineage "dating back thousands of years." Okay, that's kind of interesting. Ever since genetic testing company 23andMe became popular, people with a few hundred dollars to burn have been getting more interested in learning about their lineage, so why not do that in a colorful piece of wall art?

The process

When you place an order, DNA 11 sends you a swab kit encased in an aluminum carrier, which contains two swabs, two vials, an envelope, instructions, and a swatch selector.

The instructions say to swab the inside of each cheek and then pop the swabs into the provided vials of liquid. I had questions, though: should I brush my teeth first, or would that just muddle things up with minty freshness? Should I just swish with water, or is my DNA going to get mixed up with the pork I just ate for lunch? (Calm down guys, it's a joke—everyone knows pig and human DNA always mixes.) I went ahead and swished—I decided to go with pig over mint—and performed the swabbing.

For your $440+, you strangely do not get a prepaid envelope to send the samples back in. Presumably the reason for this is because DNA 11 has multiple offices where you can send your sample (including one in Europe), which is a nice consideration. Still, the $4.90 it cost me to send mine back via USPS Priority Mail was slightly annoying considering how much the entire thing cost.

According to the company, it can take four weeks to receive your art after you send your sample back (plus shipping time on both ends)—mine took a little longer because it got caught up in the holiday order rush, but I am told this is not normal. Once DNA 11 is finished processing your sample, the company destroys it, but if you're getting the ancestry portrait, some of that data is obviously preserved in some form. This is what DNA 11 has to say about what's identifiable in your QR code:

"Keep in mind that this information is very general in nature and does not reveal any specifics as to your racial or cultural heritage as DNA haplogroups represent the earliest travels of your ancient ancestors. Migration in the recent millennium, combined with the fact that this only represents your mother's genealogy, means that your racial and cultural heritage may differ significantly from your mtDNA haplogroup. "

For those of you hoping to get an entire family tree's worth of information out of this thing, prepare to be disappointed. In fact, because it doesn't even cover both your mother's and father's side, it's even less informational. Indeed, the purpose of the DNA Ancestry Portrait is more for the art and less for the DNA part of it all—the fact that it's related to something you did (give your spit) is what makes it interesting.

The final product

DNA 11 allows you to choose from a number of color combinations, though you can also provide the company a Pantone selection or even a paint sample from your home if you'd like them to match it (for an extra fee, of course). I just chose one of the preselected color combos. The canvas portraits come in three sizes as well: 12" by 12", 20" by 20", or 40" by 40".

DNA 11 also offers split-screen portraits for two, three, and four people, so you could even get a single portrait to represent your entire family if you'd like.

So, what's my portrait look like? I'm glad you asked.

If you snap a photo of it with your phone*, it points to a page that reads:

Jacqui Cheng is part of mitochondrial haplogroup H, a predominantly European haplogroup that originated outside of Europe before the last glacial maximum (LGM). It first expanded in the northern Near East and southern Caucasus between 33,000 and 26,000 years ago, and later migrations from Iberia suggest it reached Europe before the LGM. It has also spread to Siberia and Inner Asia. Today, about 40% of all mitochondrial lineages in Europe are classified as haplogroup H. Haplogroup H is a descendant of haplogroup HV. The Cambridge Reference Sequence (CRS), the human mitochondrial sequence to which all other sequences are compared, belongs to haplogroup H.

(*Allegedly any QR code software should be able to read the print, but I was only successful using DNA11's official iPhone app, which I found to offer a pretty unsatisfying experience. There's no button to tell it to take a photo—it just does so whenever it feels like it, leaving you wondering what's going on—and there's no way to send yourself a link to the result once it pulls everything up. I managed to get the text off the phone for this review by selecting it all manually, copying, and then pasting into an e-mail to myself. What a pain.)

For those of you familiar with the kind of information that can be revealed by DNA, you can see how this information is particularly limited. Heck, ScienceBlogs described the offering as a "glorified barcode," which it absolutely is.

Still, it's a fun exercise and offers a decent conversation starter, if you can get past the apparent vanity of having your own DNA made into a QR code that other people have to scan in order to see what it means.

Is it worth the money? It's hard to say—most people (myself included) wouldn't spend that much on themselves for a big QR code, but it could make for a unique gift if you've got $500 to burn on a special someone.