Comparing data in Access

[Stuck2]

I have 6 different excel spreadsheets that contain Names and address I would
like to merge these files together eliminating the duplications. In some
cases I will have 12 different names from the same company and thats okay I
just want it to eliminate duplicated name if they are with the same company.

 

[Jeff Boyce]

Define "duplicate"...

Are the following duplicates:?
John Smith
John J. Smith
Jon Smith
John Jacob Jingleheimer Smith
J.J. Smith
John Smithe
Jonh Smith

It may not be possible for you to tell Access how to determine if all of
those "Smith's" are one and the same person. You may have to rely on USB
(using someone's brain).

If you'd like a starting point for USB, consider putting all the names
together in a table and sorting. Similarly-spelled names will appear
adjacent.

Regards

Jeff Boyce
Microsoft Office/Access MVP

 

[Stuck2]

A duplication would be 2 John Smith's same company same address

 

[Jeff Boyce]

You have a lot more confidence in folks' data entry skills than I do (since
I KNOW my fat fingers would mess up John's name)!

You can use the new query wizard to build a Find Duplicates query on
whichever fields you are confident represent unique records.

Regards

Jeff Boyce
Microsoft Office/Access MVP

 

[TedMi]

Finding true name duplicates is one of the most complex problems in data
processing, because the human mind can come up with way too many ways of
identifying one entity. Identifying duplicate SPELLINGS is very far removed
from identifying duplicate PERSONS or other entities such as company, street,
town, country, etc.
Are these 2 the same or different?
John Smith, GM Corp., 42 Second Ave
John Smith, General Motors Corp., 42 2nd Avenue

If all you want to do is catch dup spellings, the Access query wizard will
guide you through building a FIND DUPLICATES query. But such a query will not
pinpoint the above example.