>Can anybody explain why a child table of a relationship can skip to
>another record that is not in scope of the relationship value.

SET RELATION will establish a relation form one work area into another. If you then change the work area the relationship is suspended. For example;

USE Customer
USE Invoice in 0 TAG Custno
SET RELATION TO CustNo INTO Invoice
* Relationship is established
SELECT Invoice
* Relationship from Customer is suspended
SELECT Customer
* Relationship is back but record in Invoice has not been moved
GOTO RECNO()
* Relationship is reestablished

If you want to select the child work area and process records that are related you can;

SELECT ChildArea
SCAN WHILE Child.ParentFK = Parent.ParentPK
   blah, blah, blah
ENDSCAN
SELECT Parent
GOTO RECNO()