You described "Cascading Delete". This is an OPTIONAL setting on the
referential integrity.

Yes, it is directional.

Regards

Jeff Boyce
Microsoft Office/Access MVP

"Phippsy" wrote in message
...
Thank you all so much.
I suppose I am thinking of the primary table where referentioal integrity
has been set. Am I correct in thinking that the cascade only works one
way -
ie from the 'Primary' (left hand) table. If you delete a record from the
'Primary' table it cascades through to the Child (Secondary) table but it
doesn't work if you delete a record from the Secondary table.

Debbie

"John Vinson" wrote:

On Tue, 17 Oct 2006 17:25:02 -0700, NetworkTrade
wrote:

Obviously they must share the same field ID...so neither/either is
inherently primary per se...in ones mind the table that is used most
frequently I tend to think of as the primary....

Well, as implemented in Access (and SQL/Server, Oracle, MySQL, and
others), you're mistaken; even one to one relationships have
directionality. If you are going to enforce referential integrity,
there must be a record in the "primary" or "left hand" table, and
there may or may not be a record in the child table. Strictly
speaking, it's a "One to (Zero or one)" relationship.

John W. Vinson[MVP]