Please confirm something that I think I just realized: Am I correct in understanding that I can join two table in a query only and the join not exist anywhere outside the query? It appears to me to be the case, but I'm concerned that I'm missing something of importance. Please comment on if I'm correct and if I am what are the drawbacks if any.

TIA
Stephen

Yes you are correct you can join tables in a query that don't have a existing relationship. I normally only use this to extract data for reports as any tables that require changes of information should be accessible through the databases existing relationships. I suppose the only draw back is documentation, where you are trying to show that the relationship you have created in your query is correct.

Thanks, sometimes I feel as thought I work on these dbs so much that I get delirious and start to imagine things.

I appreciate the response.