You could leave the Contact and un-attach them from the Company. Then the notes will still know who the note was made by. They could be archived with a flag and then if needed they can be reattached to the new company when they resurface elsewhere.
But I will admit that 16,000 contacts is quite a few contacts and chances are when a user goes to make a new contact that will just make that contact over again as they may very well have a different email address associated with their new company. they are unlikely to search Archived contacts first.
It might be simpler for you to use a snapshot fields to freeze in the name of the contact and any other important fields like maybe their title and email address and mobile.
That way if you do decide to delete the contact then you still have the most important information about them safely on the Notes record.
Then it really may not matter too much if you decide to delete them or to archive them.
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Mark Shnier (YQC)
Quick Base Solution Provider
Your Quick Base Coach
http://QuickBaseCoach.commark.shnier@gmail.com
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