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GrahamC GrahamC is offline
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Default Finding loops in parent/child relationships

Hi,
I'm hoping someone can help me with a thorny problem.

I have a worksheet with 2 columns of data: 1 called Parent and the other
called Child. A number represents each 'person' and each row represents a
parent/child relationship e.g.

Parent Child
1 2
2 3
3 4
4 5
4 2
5 8
6 7
7 8
8 1

I am trying to find the rows that cause a loop in the parent/child hierarchy
i.e. a child eventually has one of its parents as its own child.

I've tried using VLOOKUP to build a lineage of grandparents, great
grandparents etc but that doesn't cope with the case where a child has more
than one parent.

Please could someone help? Have you solved this kind of problem before?

Thanks in advance,
Graham