combine tables

[CandiC]

I have two tables of customer information in Access which contain data that I
would like to merge into 1 new table labeled (2009 master mailer). The parent
table (2008) has historical data and includes some information similar to
table(2009), like customers information as well as new customer information.
the only common columns on the two lists are,
basic customer information such as name, address, city, state, postal,
homephone. However table(2009) includes two other columns of information,
"notes" & "project" that I must be able to keep. Please advise the best way
to
approach this situation.

 

[Jerry Whittle]

The best way is to never, ever have seperate tables for years, months, days,
projects, etc. You now know why.

Is there a primary key on either table? Something like a Customer ID field
where the data is consistent between the two tables? I.E. Custome 123 is the
same in both tables? If that is the case you could do an append query and
pour the records from 2008 into the 2009 table. You will get an error for any
duplicates, but Access will let the rest in.

If you don't have a primary key field defined, then you could create a
multi-field primary key based on all the name and address fields. HOWEVER if
someone even did something as small as AVENUE in one table and AVE in the
other, it will allow in both records.

Most likely you are just going to have to put human eyeballs on the problem
and manually update the 2009 table. While doing so, consider 2010 and how to
avoid this problem in the first place.