[djc1971]

I live in a 110 year old house. I followed the phone line to inside the house where there are a tone of different phone wires. I remode the kitchen a year ago and rememeber a line in the basement but its only a 3 wire line. No color lines just 3 lines twist together. If I want to turn this into an up to date phone line how do I connect the red and green wire to a unknown color wires?

[Scleros]

Either trace the wires back to the NID to see what terminals they connect to or remove the old wiring and pull a new CAT3 or better unshielded twisted pair(s) to a 66 or 110 block and then home run new wiring from all the jacks back to the block. It's a bit of work, but if you take the latter route you will know what you have and be able to support DSL and multiple phones/lines, etc. HomePhoneWiring.com is helpful if you go that route.

[Stratmando]

If they are connected, then a with a Multimeter, you could look for 48 Volts DC on a pair, then the Negative is Red and the Positve is green.

[gunner_00]

Sometimes, if you look closely, there is a red or green tracer thread in the insulation in those old wires. Really though, they need replaced if possible. Otherwise, without communication specific tools, you just use any 2 wires at the jack, then hook the other end to what you know has dial tone and swap wires out until you get dial tone in that phone. If you plug a cordless into the jack, you can take the handset to the basement/outside with you.