Being a MySQL Newbie I am somewhat lost in figuring out how to pull data from multiple tables.

Before I ask the question let me give some background: First of all the Db is not built yet so I am rather flexible in my approach (still in the pre-planning phase).

In this database I am looking at having three tables to handle personal information (name address, phone, etc)

The tables would be: Clients Staff Contributors

So lets say I wanted to produce a query where it would give me every person who is listed in all three tables, I know I could use the SELECT * FROM Clients, Staff, Contributors WHERE lastname='whatever'

But here is where I get lost, lets say I want to produce a report (using PHP) that shows me everyone that falls into all three categories. I think I know how to do that but then it would produce the names of the people all three times, so I would need to eliminate 2 of the 3 names for report purposes.

I hope I have explained this well enough and would appreciate any help or assistance that could be provided

Thanks,

Jess