I understand now. You have some grid columns that are fields of the parent table, and others that are fields of the child. I was able to duplicate this in the command window with 2 tables, a SET RELATION, and a SET SKIP. The asterisks appear to be what Fox puts in those fields normally. I haven't used SET SKIP for awhile, but I seem to remember it's always been this way. If you have any way to detect the first child record for a given parent, maybe you can dynamically hide the contents of any subsequent matching records. If I think of another way around it, I'll post again.