>

>nMsgId  nParentId
>> 1       1
>> 8       1
>>10       1
>>11      10
>>12       8
>>13      12
>
>select nMsgId,nParentId from myTable order by ?????
>
>>nMsgId  nParentId
>> 1       1
>> 8       1
>>12       8
>>13      12
>>10       1
>>11      10
>
>*- This does not look ordered to me. Why do nMsgID's 10 and 11 come after 13?

At first glance (and with the limited data that I provided) no it probably doesn't look ordered.
The purpose for this is to be used in a message thread system. so the first record in the "ordered" table is the start of a new message thread, the 2nd rec is related to message 1 because of its parentid. Message with msgid 12 is related to msg 8 and so on.

Einar