Example distributed storage systems, version control managers, and methods provide persistent version control for data transfers between heterogeneous data stores. A first object data store includes a versioned data object with a plurality of sequential versions corresponding to the versioned data object. A version control manager is configured to determine a creation timestamp for each of the plurality of sequential versions and store a persistent version field for each. The persistent version field remains associated with each of the plurality of sequential versions when transferred from the first object data store to a second object data store.