1. A method for persistently maintaining and exposing previous object hierarchies, comprising: maintaining a plurality of persistent object hierarchies to which said object belongs across one or more hierarchy destroying operations, wherein said persistent hierarchies are maintained in vectors of object identifiers stored together with corresponding objects in an object repository; generating a user interface object that allows a user to select one of said persistent hierarchies; and responsive to said user selecting one of said persistent hierarchies, displaying said selected persistent hierarchy with said object as a currently selected object within said selected persistent hierarchy.