Just Venting and a Question

[Lumpierbritches]

I'm curious as to why some questions posted here get results and solutions,
while others are answered in a seemingly foreign language and I can't begin to
comprehend or understand the answers that are given. Is there a place to learn
this foreign language to be able to better communicate questions, as to derive
the solution that the poster is attempting to receive? If so, where please?

I have a program that I'm trying to track animal genetic upline, example:

AnimalID is the Animal Name, there in the same table is Sire (father) and Dam
(mother).My problem is I can get the Sire and Dam for the initial animal, but I
can't get the additional Dam's and Sire's for the initial father and mother. Is
it a query that I'm looking to use or code to successfully accomplish this
goal?

Thank you,

Michael

[Pavel Romashkin]

I think that the answer to your particular question is closely related
to the first (venting) part.

There is no way one can suggest a working solution to a question like
you asked without knowing how your database is set up. We need to be
able to read table names you use and field names you have, and know whet
primary keys are, and what related tables there are. This enables us to
follow the logic of the database and figure out how to get the
additional Dam's and Sire's for the initial father and mother.
Please remember - we have no information about your database and,
therefore, can not provide advice until we see this information.

Best regards,
Pavel

Lumpierbritches wrote:

I'm curious as to why some questions posted here get results and solutions,
while others are answered in a seemingly foreign language and I can't begin to
comprehend or understand the answers that are given. Is there a place to learn
this foreign language to be able to better communicate questions, as to derive
the solution that the poster is attempting to receive? If so, where please?

I have a program that I'm trying to track animal genetic upline, example:

AnimalID is the Animal Name, there in the same table is Sire (father) and Dam
(mother).My problem is I can get the Sire and Dam for the initial animal, but I
can't get the additional Dam's and Sire's for the initial father and mother. Is
it a query that I'm looking to use or code to successfully accomplish this
goal?

Thank you,

Michael

[Salad]

Lumpierbritches wrote:

I'm curious as to why some questions posted here get results and solutions,
while others are answered in a seemingly foreign language and I can't begin to
comprehend or understand the answers that are given. Is there a place to learn
this foreign language to be able to better communicate questions, as to derive
the solution that the poster is attempting to receive? If so, where please?

I have a program that I'm trying to track animal genetic upline, example:

AnimalID is the Animal Name, there in the same table is Sire (father) and Dam
(mother).My problem is I can get the Sire and Dam for the initial animal, but I
can't get the additional Dam's and Sire's for the initial father and mother. Is
it a query that I'm looking to use or code to successfully accomplish this
goal?

Thank you,

Michael

I may have replied in the past to you and mentioned you should go to
google and look around there. Goto http://groups.google.com and select
AdvancedSearch. In the Words To Search enter
Geneology
and for the groups to search enter
*access*

Anyway, here is just ONE response from the google search. There are 84
threads on just the word Geneology to review. Then start looking for
Dam and Sire and it should have even more results.

Google article:
The human relationships that you want to trace will define
the data structure you need.

For a simple example, see:
Self Joins: tables that look themselves up (Pedigrees example)
at:
http://odyssey.apana.org.au/~abrowne/ser-06.html

That article handles biological parents only, not step parents.
For those, you would need a lookup table that defines the
relationship types, and a link table between 2 copies of your
Person database that links the 2 people by a defined relationship
type.

For more complex tree tracing, see Joe Celko's article:
A Look at SQL Trees at:
http://www.dbmsmag.com/9603d06.html

[Lumpierbritches]

The .au link I couldn't get to come up to see the relationship for Geneology.

Michael

[Lumpierbritches]

Pavel, Thank you;

Table Name: tblAnimals
fields: AnimalID - Primary Key 100 characters, usually name of animal and
registration.

Sire - name of father of this animal
Dam - name of mother of this animal

Sire1a - name of father of Sire 1
Dam1a - name of the mother of the Sire 1

Sire1b - name of Sire for Dam 1
Dam1b - name of Dam for Dam 1

Sire 2a - name of Sire of Sire 1a
Dam2a - name of Dam of Sire 1a

Sire2b - name of Sire of Sire 1b
Dam2b - name of Dam of Sire 1b

etc etc, all the way through five generations. All form fields are named, but
unbound.

[Matthew Sullivan]

If you've been learning Access by "just picking it up", then raw SQL,
VBA code, and database theory (normalization, keys, relations) can
absolutely seem like a foreign language.

The Google Groups archives are chock full of recommendations for
tutorial and reference books for people with all sorts of backgrounds.

I *guarantee* you that a decent book will more than pay for itself.

Also: learn to use the Google Groups archives if you haven't already.
They're a treasure trove of information.

Access is so user-friendly that just about anyone who's not afraid to
turn on a computer can learn to use it. Learning to use it *well*,
however, takes an investment of time. Invest that time to study it
more formally, and, IMHO, you'll be thankful that you did.

Good luck!

-Matt

On 14 Apr 2004 21:42:56 GMT, lu************* @aol.com (Lumpierbritche s)
wrote:

I'm curious as to why some questions posted here get results and solutions,
while others are answered in a seemingly foreign language and I can't begin to
comprehend or understand the answers that are given. Is there a place to learn
this foreign language to be able to better communicate questions, as to derive
the solution that the poster is attempting to receive?

[Salad]

Lumpierbritches wrote:

The .au link I couldn't get to come up to see the relationship for Geneology.

Michael

Did you just stop at the two links I listed or did you go to google as I
recommended?

[Pavel Romashkin]

With this information it is much easier to suggest a solution.
The database is not normalized properly. This means that information is
not stored in a way that makes it easy to find and retrieve the
information. It may let you enter parents names incorrectly, and it will
not let you store additional information for parents at all.
This design also limits your ability to go back in the tree any deeper
than the number of fields for parents you have put in the table (you
shose 5 levels, but it doesn't have to be).
The solution is simple. Change the table to contain only these columns:

tblAnimals
----------
AnimalID (Autonumber)
AnimalName (Text)
SireID (FK, Number)
DamID (FK, Number)
isFemale (Yes/No)
Picture (Hyperlink)
Other ...

Sire and Dam are AnimalIDs of the parents stored in the same table. In a
table like this you can build a tree as deep as you want.
You can base the form on a query, which you build in query designer. You
will need to link tblAnimals to itself twice - tblAnimals_1 you link
SirID to AnimalID, tblAnimals_2 you link DamID to AnimalID. You can now
set up your form so that Sir and Dam are chosen from drop lists, as
opposed to typing them in, and you can set up a standard form where you
enter animal information. This will let you reduce data entry in cases
when you have the same parents for different animals.

Hope this helps,
Pavel
Lumpierbritches wrote:

Pavel, Thank you;

Table Name: tblAnimals
fields: AnimalID - Primary Key 100 characters, usually name of animal and
registration.

Sire - name of father of this animal
Dam - name of mother of this animal

Sire1a - name of father of Sire 1
Dam1a - name of the mother of the Sire 1

Sire1b - name of Sire for Dam 1
Dam1b - name of Dam for Dam 1

Sire 2a - name of Sire of Sire 1a
Dam2a - name of Dam of Sire 1a

Sire2b - name of Sire of Sire 1b
Dam2b - name of Dam of Sire 1b

etc etc, all the way through five generations. All form fields are named, but
unbound.

[Joan Wild]

Lumpierbritches wrote:

The .au link I couldn't get to come up to see the relationship for
Geneology.

http://members.iinet.net.au/~allenbrowne/ser-06.html

--
Joan Wild
Microsoft Access MVP

[--CELKO--]

>> For more complex tree tracing, see Joe Celko's article: .. <<

Actually, I would rather that you buy my new book on Amazon.com on
trees & Hierarchies in SQL, so I can get royalities :)