  We present a new method to estimate the fraction of stars with chemical
composition of first and second(s) generation(s) currently hosted in Galactic
globular clusters (GCs). We compare cluster and field stars of similar
metallicity in the [Fe/H]-[Na/H] plane. Since the phenomenon of multiple
populations is only restricted to the cluster environment, the number of GC
stars whose location coincides with that of field stars provides the fraction
of first generation stars in that cluster. By exclusion, the fraction of second
generation stars is derived. We assembled a dataset of 1891 field stars of the
thin disk, thick disk, and halo of the Milky Way in the metallicity range -3.15
<= [Fe/H] <= +0.48 dex and with Na abundance from high resolution spectra. They
are mostly dwarfs, but include also giants. Considering only the range in
metallicity spanned by most GCs extensively studied for the Na-O
anticorrelation (-2.36 <= [Fe/H] <= -0.33 dex), we have 804 stars. The total
sample is homogeneized by offsets in [Fe/H] and [Na/H] with respect to a
reference sample using the same line list and NLTE correction for Na adopted in
a recent extensive survey of GC stars. This fully accounts for offsets among
analyses due to different temperature scales, line lists, adopted (or
neglected) corrections for departures from LTE. We illustrate our method
estimating the fraction of first and second generation stars in the well
studied GC NGC 6752. As a by-product, the comparison of [Na/H] values in GC and
field stars suggests that at least two classes of old stellar systems probably
contributed to the halo assembly: one group with characteristics similar to the
currently existing GCs, and the other more similar to the present-day dwarf
satellite galaxies.
