A computerized method for representing a data record comprising: querying a data source to obtain data selected from the group consisting of a data element in a record, and metadata concerning the record; presenting in a display a record handle for manipulation of the record; presenting in the display a data item wherein the data item is a list of data items or a reference to another record; and, optionally, presenting on the display the metadata above the data item. In some embodiments, the method includes the step of retrieving one or more heterogeneous records from a plurality of databases for display and manipulation. The invention is also a grid control programmed to implement a disclosed method and is a computer-readable medium having computer-executable instructions for performing a disclosed method. The invention links the grid control of the invention with automatic query generation using hierarchical data schema trees. Both the trees and the grid records represent relational foreign keys as extra reference columns. In the grid control, these reference columns are additional embedded record handles.