RelativesAfter

RelativesAfter is a term used in genealogical data modeling to denote a data element that represents relatives identified after a specified point in time or after a defined event, such as post-genetic matching or a later data upload. The term combines relatives and after to indicate that the list or tag captures new relative connections discovered subsequently rather than at the initial data capture.

In practice, RelativesAfter may appear as a field in data schemas or as a tag in family-history platforms. It can be implemented as a boolean flag indicating whether any relatives were discovered after the initial dataset, or as a structured list containing entries for each relative, with attributes such as relative_id, relationship to the user, discovery_date, source, and confidence.

Applications include surfacing post-discovery relatives in user interfaces, assisting researchers to track newly found connections, and enabling privacy controls by controlling the exposure of recently discovered data. Because RelativesAfter can involve information about living individuals, systems should implement appropriate consent mechanisms, allow opt-out options, and comply with applicable data-protection and genealogy-ethics guidelines.

Example: a genealogy service detects a new DNA match after an initial upload and adds that match to the RelativesAfter collection, labeling it with discovery_date and source, and optionally routing it through user consent flows before display.

Related topics include genealogy data models, DNA-based matching, privacy in genealogy, and data governance.