Color Coding

Have you ever used a software feature one way—only to later discover it has a lot more potential than you realized?

That’s been my experience with RootsMagic’s color coding. The program allows for ten different color code sets, but until recently, I’d only been using two. One set highlights my ancestral lines, while the other tracks the various Crawford lines in my tree. In both cases, the colors help me easily follow descendants through different branches.

A recent discussion in a Facebook group got me thinking differently. Someone suggested using color coding to track individuals who’ve been edited—a task I hadn’t considered before. That sparked an idea. Why not use color coding to monitor other ongoing tasks?

So, I’ve now added new codes to help me track two specific things: whether a photo has been shared to a person’s FamilySearch profile and whether a narrative report has been added to their WikiTree profile.

Using color coding in this expanded way will make it much easier to see what I’ve done—and what still needs attention.