Ok, so i have a table called Reptiles and fields for it:

ReptileID

ReptileCode

ReptileSex

ReptileMorph

ReptileSire

ReptileDame

ECT...

i need to setup a family tree, showing 5 generations,the reptilesire and reptiledame fields record the same data that would be inputed into the ReptilCode field, so they show the ReptileCode for sire and dame.

In the image attached you can see that the subject is the record being browsed, and the (ReptileCode) for the sire and dame is showing, but the other fields which just show the same data from the subject because i dont have fields setup to record that info of the sires and dames of each generation in the Reptiles table,

i know i can either add alot of extra fields to Reptiles table to record ll the info for each generation, or i can setup a relationship(s), problem is i have no clue how to set up the relationship, im betting its a table occurrence of the Reptiles table, but how many? and how i do i setup the relationship meaning = or x or the pound looking symbol. i need to show atleast 4 generations but would love to have 5.

should i set a relationship to achieve this?

I did a quick database for what i want to achieve above, made a table called Reptiles with the above fields, and then duplicated that occurence for the sire and another for the dame, i related the fields like so:

Reptiles::ReptileSire -- = -- Reptiles Occurence Sire::ReptileTagCode

Reptiles::ReptileDame -- = -- Reptiles Occurence Dame::ReptileTagCode

it displayed the sire and dames info properly, and i can just repeat my steps buy creating occurences for for the sires and dames up to 5 generations, but thats gonna be alot of table occurences and im wondering if this is gonna be riddled with errors later on or if it is sloppy coding, maybe there is a better secure way of doing this?

i need to setup a family tree, showing 5 generations,the reptilesire and reptiledame fields record the same data that would be inputed into the ReptilCode field, so they show the ReptileCode for sire and dame.

In the image attached you can see ...

There is no image attached, so ...

It's not quite clear what you mean by "family tree". Filemaker can gather the data (i.e. the details of ancestors 5 generations back) but displaying it in a meaningful way is another matter altogether.