I am working on a system to find potential duplicates in our customers table (SQL 2005). I am using the built-in SOUNDEX value that our software computes when customers are added/updated, but I also implemented the double metaphone algorithm for better matching. This is the most-nested query I have created, and I can't help but think there is a better way to do it and I'd like to learn. In the inner-most query I am joining the customer table to the metaphone table I created, then finding customers that have identical pKey (primary phonetic key). I take that, union that with customers that have matching soundex values, and then proceed to score those matches with various text similarity functions. This is currently working, but I would also like to add a union of customers whose aKey (alternate phonetic key) match. This would be identical to "QUERY A" except to substitute on (c1Akey = c2Akey) for the join. However, when I attempt to include that, I get errors when I try to execute my query. Here is the code: --Create aggregate ranking select c1Name, c2Name, nDiff, c1Addr, c2Addr, aDiff, c1SSN, c2SSN, sDiff, c1DOB, c2DOB, dDiff, nDiff+aDiff+dDiff+sDiff as Score ,(sDiff+dDiff)*1.5 + (nDiff+dDiff)*1.5 + (nDiff+sDiff)*1.5 + aDiff *.5 + nDiff *.5 as [Rank] FROM ( --Create match scores for different fields SELECT c1Name, c2Name, c1Addr, c2Addr, c1SSN, c2SSN, c1LTD, c2LTD, c1DOB, c2DOB, dbo.Jaro(c1name, c2name) AS nDiff, dbo.JaroWinkler(c1addr, c2addr) AS aDiff, CASE WHEN c1dob = '1901-01-01' OR c2dob = '1901-01-01' OR c1dob = '1800-01-01' OR c2dob = '1800-01-01' THEN .5 ELSE dbo.SmithWaterman(c1dob, c2dob) END AS dDiff, CASE WHEN c1ssn = '000-00-0000' OR c2ssn = '000-00-0000' THEN .5 ELSE dbo.Jaro(c1ssn, c2ssn) END AS sDiff FROM -- Generate list of possible matches based on multiple phonetic matching fields ( select * from -- List of similar names from pKey field of ##Metaphone table --QUERY A BEGIN (select customers.custno as c1Custno, name as c1Name, haddr as c1Addr, ssn as c1SSN, lasttripdate as c1LTD, dob as c1DOB, soundex as c1Soundex, pkey as c1Pkey, akey as c1Akey from Customers WITH (nolock) join ##Metaphone on customers.custno = ##Metaphone.custno) as c1 JOIN (select customers.custno as c2Custno, name as c2Name, haddr as c2Addr, ssn as c2SSN, lasttripdate as c2LTD, dob as c2DOB, soundex as c2Soundex, pkey as c2Pkey, akey as c2Akey from Customers with (nolock) join ##Metaphone on customers.custno = ##Metaphone.custno) as c2 on (c1Pkey = c2Pkey) and (c1Custno < c2Custno) WHERE (c1Name <> 'PARENT, GUARDIAN') and c1soundex != c2soundex --QUERY A END union --List of similar names from pregenerated SOUNDEX field (select t1.custno, t1.name, t1.haddr, t1.ssn, t1.lasttripdate, t1.dob, t1.[soundex], 0, 0, t2.custno, t2.name, t2.haddr, t2.ssn, t2.lasttripdate, t2.dob, t2.[soundex], 0, 0 from Customers t1 WITH (nolock) join customers t2 with (nolock) on t1.[soundex] = t2.[soundex] and t1.custno < t2.custno where (t1.name <> 'PARENT, GUARDIAN')) ) as a ) as b where (sDiff+dDiff)*1.5 + (nDiff+dDiff)*1.5 + (nDiff+sDiff)*1.5 + aDiff *.5 + nDiff *.5 >= 7.5 order by [rank] desc, score desc Previously, I was using joins such as on c1.pkey = c2.pkey or c1.akey = c2.akey or c1.soundex = c2.soundex but the performance was horrendous, and using unions seems to be working a lot better. Out of 103K customers, tt is currently generating a list of 8.5M potential matches (based on the phonetic codes) in 2.25 minutes, and then taking another 2 to score, rank and filter those down to about 3000. So I am happy with the performance, I just can't help but think there is a better way to structure this, and I need help adding the extra union condition. Thanks!