Hi Grethe
The association table is for storing and maintaining the data. For reporting purposes you might be better off to create a data mart shaped to the kind of reports you intend to create.
If - and only if - you don't have too many data then the reporting datamart(s) could also be implemented as views which query the underlying tables using an association table.
The data model with the association table could look as follows:
PERSON{PersonID,...variables containing attributs of this person}
RELATIONSHIP{PersonID,RelatedPersonID,RelationshipID,...additional attributes}
RELATIONSHIP_TYPE{RelationshipID,RelationshipDescription}
PERSON has a 1 to zero or many relation to RELATIONSHIP
RELATIONSHIP_TYPE is only a lookup table for RELATIONSHIP with a few records and values for RelationshipDescription like "Father", "Mother", "Sibling", "Aunt".... and so on.
HTH
Patrick
Message was edited by: Patrick