Steve Holden <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > It seems like some sort of free text search on a "full name" field looks like > the only realistic globally-acceptable (?) option.
This is what we opted doing. Normalization to this level wouldn't add much since there are a lot of "Smith"s that aren't relatives. If finding relatives is something you need to do, demand that the mother's name be filled in and put an optional field for father's name. Then compare and ask if there's something between two people with the same mother / father. (Remember about people with the same name! There are a lot of "John Smith" or "José da Silva" around :-)) -- Jorge Godoy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list