Patent ID: 8510338

Claim:
A method for executing on a processor for associating and retrieving data records from one or more databases, comprising: receiving a data record; identifying a set of candidate data records based on a comparison between a set of existing data records and the received data record, wherein each of the existing data records is associated with an entity identifier value that includes an identity link that links the data record to other data records containing information about the same entity and a hierarchy link that links the data record to other data records that are hierarchically related; scoring each of the set of candidate data records, wherein the score of each of the candidate data records determines whether the received data record and each candidate data record comprise information relating to an entity; and associating the received data record with a first candidate data record of the set of candidate data records in response to the score of the first candidate data record being greater than a first threshold; wherein the first candidate data record is in a first data hierarchy such that the first candidate data record has a first set of hierarchical associations with a first set of related data records, and association of the received data record with the first candidate data record also results in the received data record being associated via the first set of hierarchical associations with the first set of related data records such that a subsequent query that retrieves the received data record will also retrieve the first candidate data record and the first set of related data records via the first set of hierarchical associations.