I have a table that has a "Child 1 Name" field, a "Child 1 Birthday" field, a "Child 2 Name" field a "Child 2 Birthday" field etc. I want the names of any children under the age of 23 to appear on a report with other things. I have tried creating queries for each child group and also tried writing an expression to handle this. I have not had any luck. What would be the best way to handle this?

Welcome to Utter Access.

I hate to say it, but the best way to handle this is to start over with a more appropriate table design.

Your first step should be to learn the fundamential principles of database design, collectively referred to as "normalization".

What you have now is really the functional equivalent of a spreadsheet. While spreadsheets are very fine tools for analyzing and presenting data, they are really not good for storing it, nor for making it available in logical ways, e.g. in an age grouped report. What you need to do with your database is store your data. That's what a well designed database does.

Here are some references to help you get started.

• Database planning tutorial Part I
• Database planning tutorial Part II
• argeedblu's FAQ on Design Strategies
• Noah's FAQ on Normalization
• Jerry's FAQ on Normalization
• GroverParkGeorge's PDF on Normalization
• Jerry’s FAQ on Fully Qualified Naming
• Jerry's FAQ on Glossary
• Danny's FAQ on Reserved Words
• Autonumbers - What They Are / Are Not
• Primary Keys - Natural vs Surrogate
• Naming Conventions - Hungarian Notation
• Crystal's ACCESS Basics for Programming
• Database Answers (free models)
• MSKB 283878: Description of the database normalization basics
  
• Presentation and sample db

HTH

George

I realize it is put together poorly but I didn't write it and it has been used by them for years. I just was going to make it a little more user friendly. The 70 year old lady who uses it got into a table to change prices and messed some stuff up. I am an amateur that is just trying to help her out so it doesn't happen again.

I don't mean to sound unsymapthetic, but if you want to help her, then suggesting to her that a redesign will be very useful would be the route I would advise. Besides, I happen to believe that even 70 year olds are still able to learn new tricks.

Things like grouping on specific values, which you inquired about, are just one of the reasons to do so.

You could create a work-around with a union query that combines each of the existing "children" and "birthdate" fields into a single field, and then apply your criteria to that.

Still, it's a short-run/long-run thing. Paste a band-aid on it, or fix it properly. If she really doesn't want to go for a proper fix, you're stuck with the UNION query band-aid.