A method and apparatus that manages transactions during a data migration. The transfer of data from an old database to a new database is structured as a set of small transactions. The transactions can be structured in a hierarchy of dependent transactions such that the transactions are nested or similarly hierarchical. A migration manager includes a set of transaction management methods or processes that enable the processing of the nested transactions thereby providing a higher level of granularity in transaction size and providing the ability to rollback small individual transactions as well as affected related transactions. The transaction management methods and processes manage a set of queues that are utilized by the migration manager to generate and execute the nested transactions.