1. A computer-implemented method comprising: clustering hierarchical database records into a first set of clusters having corresponding first cluster identifications (IDs), wherein each hierarchical database record corresponds to an entity representation, each hierarchical database record comprising a plurality of fields, each field configured to contain a field value, and each field value assigned a field value weight corresponding to a specificity of the field value in relation to all field values in a corresponding field of the hierarchical database records, the clustering based at least in part on determining similarity among corresponding field values of the hierarchical database records; determining parent-child hierarchical relationships among the hierarchical database records; associating related hierarchical database records by applying a hierarchal directional linking process, the hierarchal directional linking process comprising selecting and applying at least an upward process based on the determined parent-child hierarchical relationship wherein the upward process comprises: determining, from the parent-child hierarchical relationships, similarity among a plurality of child records having initial separate parent records; in response to determining a threshold similarity among the plurality of child records, inferring that the initial separate parent records correspond to the same entity; and linking, responsive to the inferring, the initial separate parent records as inferred common parent records; re-clustering at least a portion of the database records into a second set of clusters having corresponding second cluster IDs, the re-clustering based at least in part on the associating related hierarchical database records and on the determining similarity among corresponding field values of the database records; and outputting database record information, based at least in part on the re-clustering.