Erik, Thanks for the reply. I think I understand what you are saying. I think the problem though is that i want to use the id field (which is already created) as the order so as to see the many records of the grid for the one record of the parent table. is there a way for me to get the same results(seeing the many records in the child table for the one record in the parent table) by chaning the order.

thanks for your help
James