Just Override the boolean equals() method of custom object. Say you have an ArrayList with custom field f1, f2, ... override
@Override
public boolean equals(Object o) {
if (this == o) return true;
if (!(o instanceof CustomObject)) return false;
CustomObject object = (CustomObject) o;
if (!f1.equals(object.dob)) return false;
if (!f2.equals(object.fullName)) return false;
...
return true;
}
and check using ArrayList instance's contains() method. That's it.