Family Historian User Group

Does anyone use a colour coded filing system for their paper files and if so, do you recommend it? Or is it better to keep digital where possible? This question was prompted by a lesson in a Pharos course that I'm taking at the moment.

Here are a couple of links to show what I had in mind:

Mary Hill's Family Roots Organizer Color-coding (sic) system,

http://www.mygenshare.com

Thanks!

I have four coloured ring folders, one for each of my grandparents for the paper files and photos. I scan everything I can and keep in nested directories. One branch has folders for record types (census, baptisms, births etc) another has folders for each surname with subfolders for forenames. Those are in the FH data structure.
I have further directories for county info with subfolders for towns etc. , archives , fh societies, another for topics. Finally there are folders related.

If it is the Organization Course I found that very interesting and came to the conclusion that there were as many ways as there were students. I have always used a colour system. I research my husband's family too so I have blue for my Mayers, red for my Parrs, purple for Alan's Simcock and green for his Beech families, all the related names follow the main name colour. I colour code each generation, the same across the board. Each colour has a shelf for it's files.

My individual direct line has a set colour (buff) and their spouse a pale blue summary (they have their own individual sheet in their family name). Having the direct line person in a different colour within the generation means I can go straight to that person in the file. I did try to make my FH diagram generations follow the same colour system but after lots of discussion on the forum it appears my idea of how to number generations is not how everyone else sorts them. For me our son is 0, we are generation 1, our parents 2, and so on backwards and I couldn't get my diagrams to do this, but then I'm not techy!

I find colour coding excellent. (There is a little program called "Folder Marker" not sure if it is available but it is brilliant as in "My Documents" I can go to the correct folder straight away. I suppose it depends how your brain works and I like visual things.
Hope this helps
Ann

gwilym'smum wrote: I find colour coding excellent. (There is a little program called "Folder Marker" not sure if it is available but it is brilliant as in "My Documents" I can go to the correct folder straight away.

It's available at http://foldermarker.com/en/download/ Have just downloaded it, virus scanned and run.

Looks good - have changed my digital folder colours to match physical ones.

(Can be done in Windows 10 by Right Click Folder Icon > Customise, Change Icon)

But this is slicker. Thank you Ann.

gwilym'smum wrote:If it is the Organization Course I found that very interesting and came to the conclusion that there were as many ways as there were students.

Yes, that's the one! Organizing your Genealogy (202)

gwilym'smum wrote: There is a little program called "Folder Marker" not sure if it is available but it is brilliant as in "My Documents" I can go to the correct folder straight away. I suppose it depends how your brain works and I like visual things.
Ann

Agreed, I've recently come across Folder Marker and it does the job at a great price (free!)

thanks!

Is it worth adding "Folder Marker" to the fhugdownloads:index|> Downloads and Links?

Mike
I find it very useful as I can see at a glance which folder to go for, black for death certificates, red for marriage and green for births then there are different colours for parish registers, censuses etc. As you know Mike I like to keep things simple. It might help others.
Ann

Whilst Foldermarker changes the original folders, this is not carried through to the Quick Access shortcuts!

To get quick access to certain folders, I pin their shortcut to the Quick Access folder.
e.g. so instead of having to navigate my way to D:\Genealogy\Parish Registers\Births, I can go direct to Quick Access/Births

But if I colour code the original folder, this is not carried through to the shortcut!

Also, if one tries to colour code the quick access shortcut to highlight it, it colour codes the original folder (which is hidden deep in the hierarchy), but leaves the shortcut as it was!

Just as well it's free!

I've added fhugdownloads:contents:utility_folder_marker|> Utility ~ Folder Marker.
Does it provide a reasonable description?

Sounds fine Mike.
Ann

tatewise wrote:I've added fhugdownloads:contents:utility_folder_marker|> Utility ~ Folder Marker.
Does it provide a reasonable description?

Hi Mike that looks good to me.

Gowermick wrote:Whilst Foldermarker changes the original folders, this is not carried through to the Quick Access shortcuts!

To get quick access to certain folders, I pin their shortcut to the Quick Access folder.
e.g. so instead of having to navigate my way to D:\Genealogy\Parish Registers\Births, I can go direct to Quick Access/Births

But if I colour code the original folder, this is not carried through to the shortcut!

Also, if one tries to colour code the quick access shortcut to highlight it, it colour codes the original folder (which is hidden deep in the hierarchy), but leaves the shortcut as it was!

Just as well it's free!

The shortcuts and pinned to Quick Access icons can be colour coded by first coding the folder and then creating the shortcut or pin to quick access. It doesn't work retrospectively unfortunately.

Gotcha, I tried everything but that! They were already linked so never thought to unlink then re-link
I'll give it another try!

Ta

Udate:
Contrary to my initial thoughts, Shortcuts ARE updated when you re-colour the original folder. All you have to do is move position of shortcut (even if to same position)! This seems to trigger a refresh of the software, so that shortcut colour then changes to match original folder colour (i.e no need to Link then re-Link)
gets better and better