thanks so much for your rapid reply, Alaina!

i realize now that the spurious account duplicates all the recent transactions in another account.  i made the spurious account inactive, but see "trails" of the account in other accounts because some transactions are transfers from/to another bank account.  QB won't let me delete these spurious (duplicate) transactions, saying that the transaction is tied to an inactive account.  how can i delete the spurious account?

many thanks-and Happy New year!