I have done the same thing a couple times, but made certain to backup the original databases so as not to regret it should something go awry.... Have fun and learn well.....

I enhance and modify every day. It doesn't take much to bring it all down. Thank goodness for AccDevTools. I find little bits everywhere that I forgot about.

As to your helper table, we've talked about that here quite a bit, Richard had his example, and mine took it to the next solar system. I've cleaned it up from some earlier snaps. And broke a lot in the better organizing.

Explanation: The Entity table/form is where I keep organizations, people, animals, etcetera. The Element table is my helper table where I keep all of the little descriptions that are used in combo boxes, for many different tables.

I gave three examples for just the Entity table: 1) Real or fictitious ID, 2) Type ethnicity ID, and 3) Birth sex ID. You can see each one of those selections from their combo box in the element table. In the form, the row source for the Type ID is displayed. The Entity table and the Element table both have a field named Type ID, but they are not related, they just share a common name.

The row source for the Type ID in the Entity form shows a sophisticated way to select just the Elements that you want for a particular combo box.