>..until you com at the end of the process and because table 4 is the last there are not enough records left of table 4 to delete, because you will violate the rule there must be SUM(D1:Dt)-G records deleted. For table 1,2 and maybe 3 everything will go ok, but reaching table 4 you can't do what you want, because some records of table 4 tou will want to delete, but they are the last existing member of a small set of duplicates, so you can't. That's why you have to backtrack at that moment, but how...

Table1          Table2               Table3            Table4  
N1 recs         N2 recs              N3 recs           N4 recs  
M1 in dups list M2 in dups list      M3 in dups list   M4 in dups list


Dups
ID   Name       Table1        Table2     Table3        Table4
1    Test1      .T.           .T.        .F.            .F.

Now, having this info, how would you solve the problem?