I was handed a database with the following fields: client name, client
birthday, spouse name, and spouse birthday. I was asked to get a
report listing all birthdays chronologically.

As a quick fix, I made 2 append queries that run in succession when
the report is called. The first query writes client name and birthday
to a new table called tbl_bday with 2 fields "name" and "birthday",
then the second query writes the spouse name and birthday to the same
table/fields.

Is there a better/more elegant way to get this report without
resorting to append query and a new table? Thanks.

Try:

SELECT [client name] AS [name], [client birthday] AS [birthday] FROM
[tblClients] WHERE [client birthday] is not null
UNION
SELECT [spouse name] AS [name], [spouse birthday] AS [birthday] FROM
[tblClients] WHERE [spouse birthday] is not null
ORDER BY [birthday];

The is null is optional, but it removes anyone that does not have a birthday

Good Luck

"cdasteve" <steveocda (AT) hotmail (DOT) com> wrote

It works. Thanks very much for the explanation on the union query.