I didn't notice which version of Access you are using. This is important
because the Replication feature went away for the ?2007 version. If you're
up to it, that might be a way if you're using the earlier (pre- 2007)
versions.

An alternate approach might be to add in a single field that holds the
location. The combination of your autonumber PLUS the
location/facility/site/... will give you a way to identify which records
belong to which site.

Now, if you were trying to use Access Autonumbers as sequence numbers,
you're in for a bit of pain. Access Autonumbers are intended to uniquely
identify rows. That's it! Not guaranteed sequential, can/will have missing
values.

Good luck!

Regards

Jeff Boyce
Microsoft Access MVP

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"Rlong via AccessMonster.com" u58125@uwe wrote in message
news:a6ee3a8f8ad28@uwe...
I've created a small but somewhat complex relational database that uses
autonumber fields in higher level tables as primary keys to link with
foreign
keys in lower level tables. At this point I have up to 5 levels of tables.
I'd like to copy this database for use at 4 other remote sites, with the
ultimate intention of merging all 5 back together after a few months of
data
entry. I've read quite a bit about how to merge databases that weren't
originally designed with future merges in mind, and this ends up being
quite
complex with so many levels and autonumber-dependent tables. I'm wondering
if
there is a way that I can create the duplicate databases from the outset
that
would make future merging easier?

For instance, by causing the autonumbers at each different site to either
start at a particular point (e.g., one site be the 100000s and another the
200000s), or, by using the "random" setting for autonumber such that no
two
autonumbers in the same table were identical (although my sense is that
"random" introduces its own problems).

Any thoughts on how to make the future merge easier would be helpful.

Thanks

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