Abstract: A system and method of managing, storing, and accessing cross references between related kinds of sub-record information in a computerized engineering database. A generic cross reference table which contains all the cross reference links for all the data items in all the data tables of the engineering database, is provided. Each link in the generic cross reference table is constituted by two records (1) a forward record with a specified link from a data item in a first data table to a record or a data item in a second data table, plus (2) a reverse record (partner record) with the link from the data item in the second data table to the record or an item in the first data table. Preferably, the link record in the cross reference table contains a link type value selected from a set of pre-defined link types for the pair of link points, comments associated with the link at the time of creation, and other link-creation information such as the identification of the user who created the link.