When first starting out to learn more about my family, I had a couple of local history books, some copies of handwritten histories, a mountain of letters, and small scraps of paper and empty envelopes that generations of people had written on. Not to mention the boxes of photographs, old maps, school papers, documents, notebooks and oh so much.

I had file folders created, using a color-coding system I started from a system I read about many years ago and so Dark Blue Fathers Paternal, Red Fathers Maternal, Green Mothers Paternal, and Yellow Mothers Maternal. I use Smead Viewables as labels, they offer ease of viewing and more information than normal file folder labels. They can also be color-coded. Then I bought first one and then another file cabinet.

I started collecting books and family bibles and then needed a bookcase, then another, then a larger one. Stacks on the floor and on top conclude I will need yet another bookcase, and yes I have already given away many books.

I then emptied my office closet and my husband put up shelves that run floor to ceiling to hold all the boxes photographs and other ephemera collected over the years, and it too is running over the space.

For the most part, all of these areas are organized, but I admit it is an ongoing project.

Then comes the internet!

My files started to come in the form of downloaded or scanned digital images. After many years of expanding these collections, I found I needed to figure out a system here or I would never have them where I could easily find the information I needed or find myself saving the same images more than once for not recognizing I already had it!

So, That should work on my computer as well.

Then I had to organize within these folders. (The gray folders are for those images I need to work on, collected but not labeled as yet or need more research.)

I would need to continue using colors, but it can get tricky if I rely on the only standard colors available, red, green, yellow, blue, purple, etc. So in searching folder icons, I found Folder Marker has great options for color-coding.

I can keep my main colors and then within those lines, have 13 colors available and each has 12 dual-color folders.

So now when I click on McMeekin folder, I see this! The bottom color will always show the mainline these families are attached to. I am able to go beyond the four grandparent’s lines.

Using a print out of the color files, I have managed to create a color-coded system that with one quick look, I know which lines are linked to which family. I should have all the folders changed by the end of the day and then will no longer wonder which Fowler line I am looking at, the one from the paternal Burgess line or the mother Blaisdell line…

Happy organizing in 2020!