In this paper is presented a pragmatic data model for creating and managing linked contextual and material objects, the design process and the reasons why it was developed. The model was created to meet the needs of private archives and digital archive services. The design goals were flexibility, cost-efficiency and suitability for daily use. The basis of the model is to use contextual objects to describe the archive objects; should they be text documents, moving image, audio or any other type of content to be preserved. By linking the contextual objects such as events, places, agents and actions, the redundancy of archive data can be minimized. The objects gain more informational value because the linking forms a network of connected objects. The data model was based on the national and international metadata standards as well as best practices from private archives. It was implemented using Fedora Commons' object modeling features as a part of the ongoing Open Source Archive project.