I don't have your tables, bat I can try to help you.

I would try to use for exampl>   SELECT * FROM table WHERE parents IN(SELECT parents FROM table_parents WHERE (....) )

If I understand your question correctly and you have a parent table and a child table, join the two tables with an INNER JOIN.  This will retrieve only the parent records that have at least one associated child record.

Example:

SELECT * FROM DT_PERSON P INNER JOIN DT_QUALIFICATION Q ON P.Person_ID = Q.Person_ID

If you use a LEFT OUTER JOIN, then parent records without any child records would also be retrieved.

I hope this helps.

Mark

David try this

HTH Mike

IF Object_ID('TempDB..#Parent')>0
 DROP TABLE #Parent
IF Object_ID('TempDB..#Child') > 0
 DROP TABLE #Child
 
CREATE TABLE #Parent
(
 Pk int,
 OtherStuff VarChar(20)

)

CREATE TABLE #Child
(

 FKParent int

)

DECLARE @Count int
Set @Count = 0
While @Count <10
Begin
Set @Count = @Count + 1 
 INSERT INTO #Parent(PK)
  VALUES(@Count)
 IF @Count < 5
 INSERT INTO #Child(FKParent) VALUES(@Count)
End
GO
SELECT P1.pK
FROM #Parent p1
WHERE NOT EXISTS
 (
  SELECT p.pk
  FROM
   #Child c
  JOIN
   #Parent p
  ON c.FKParent = P1.pk
  

--
/*

Results 5,6,7,8,9,10

Records 1-4 have parents

Edited to change Mark to David. Addressed the wrong person sorry 

*/

If you cut and paste my code you will have to insert a ) at the end of the second select statement. Love those expressions

Mike

SHAPE { SELECT * FROM DT_PERSON  where exists (select * from DT_QUALIFICATION q where DT_PERSON.PersonID = q.Person_ID) }
APPEND({SELECT * FROM DT_QUALIFICATION} RELATE Person_ID TO Person_ID) AS ChildRS

Would something like that works?