It is an optimization attempt. To be honest I don't feel right to query the parent info here, but I cannot see a way to do this in ```api/store.py/after_request()```. That should be it's optimal place but we don't have a properly filled pyramid.request object there.
I removed now the first_connection boolean related stuff here: https://github.com/hypothesis/h/commit/39c00c47953bfaaf71c1f2601a902c824d8304e8
But can you suggests a way to transfer this functionality to the the after_request() function? I've experienced with creating a blank request there, but the registry field does not get filled that way.