>No I do not. Since I am interested in how to process this file in order, I am only concerned about its records.
>
>However, if a solution required that in order to work, I could certainly add the records (the file does not yet exist, but will shortly)
>
What do you have in ParentID field for parents (or do you plan to have).

If parents have NULLs in the ParentID field, it's easy to separate parents from children. However, if you want to order your records in the order by generations (Grandparents - parents - children - grandchildren) then I don't think there is a way in VFP to do so in one select statement. You need recursive function here and create a new table with extra field showing the number in the generations chain.