>>>I have a master table that holds the name and ID for each entity in the database. The child tables (about 10) hold all of the information about each entity. I want to perform 1 query and retrieve all of the information about every matching entity and what table that information came from. Is this last part possible?
>>>thanks
>>
>>Are you planning to use a SELECT statement?
>
>Hopefully.

Then try this...
SELECT * FROM your_child_table,your_parent_table
WHERE your_parent_table->field_name ="what you want to match" and your_child_table->field_name = "what you want to match"

the FIELD_NAME in both tables have the same datatypes and lenths.