Simplify Record Search

[chuck gregory]

The most dangerous soldier in battle is a new 2nd lt. with a map. In peacetime, it's me with self-taught Access capabilities... I now have a databse wtih about 1500 customers and family members. to search out the record for a particular family member, I have to scroll alphabetically through 1500 complete forms (headed with the parents' names) until I find the one with that person's name on it. The search fun tion only works if I use the name exactly as it's spelled, so if it's misspelled, if there's an extra space between first and last name, etc., it won't be found.

I was thinking maybe I could have a list of parents' names, clicking on which would open up the list of all forms headed by that parent. Does anybody have either tips on how to do that, or a better idea?

[MMcCarthy]

tblCustomers
CustomerID (Primary key - Autonumber)
CustomerName
HeadOfHouse (Yes/No field)
FamilyID (Foreign key reference to the primary key of this table)

In the above structure each person would be entered once. If they are the designated head of the household then HeadOfHouse would be Yes with the default set to No. If No then FamilyID would be set to whomever is the HeadOfHouse for that family.

Mary

[nico5038]

I always us ethe right-click popup menu for quick selections.
Just right-click in the name field and enter in the inputbox:
*adam*
and all names containing adam will appear.
All wild characters (like the * and ?) can be used. * = any number of characters so:
adam*
will give all names starting with adam
and
*adam
gives all names ending on adam.
The ? will substitute one character so:
?adam
will give madam and not madama !

Getting the idea ?

Nic;o)

[chuck gregory]

tblCustomers
CustomerID (Primary key - Autonumber)
CustomerName
HeadOfHouse (Yes/No field)
FamilyID (Foreign key reference to the primary key of this table)

In the above structure each person would be entered once. If they are the designated head of the household then HeadOfHouse would be Yes with the default set to No. If No then FamilyID would be set to whomever is the HeadOfHouse for that family.

Mary

thanks for this information, Mary. I'm going to try Nico's suggestion first and see if it works. If it doesn't, I'll be coming back to you to see how to make yours work.

[chuck gregory]

Thanks, Nico.It works.

chuckg

I always us ethe right-click popup menu for quick selections.
Just right-click in the name field and enter in the inputbox:
*adam*
and all names containing adam will appear.
All wild characters (like the * and ?) can be used. * = any number of characters so:
adam*
will give all names starting with adam
and
*adam
gives all names ending on adam.
The ? will substitute one character so:
?adam
will give madam and not madama !

Getting the idea ?

Nic;o)