I am working on a database that has as its basic function being a huge mailing list. We are looking at somewhere around 20,000 records. We need a separate record for brothers and sisters, even if they are living at the same address. I need a way to catch duplicates. The problem is that sometimes we are looking at Liz and Elizabeth being the same person so just looking for times that First and Last Name and addresses are identical will not catch all the problems. I thought of codiing it so it would question you when you enter a new name, but sometimes we are importing thousands of names at once. Has anyone come up with a good solution when dealing with these scenarios?

Our database uses an amalgamation of name+address for the unique identifier. This works 99.44% of the time, except when a very common name comes up on a large block. Once a month we go through and search out identical listings by phone number and visually check that the names are plausibly different. This works fairly well, as you're noticing it's difficult to identify people positively without something like a SSN (for Americans).

Good luck,
David R

Thanks. I guess a regular check for duplicates would take care of any that seeped through.