Thoughts on how to trace old wires?

I knew the prior owner was an A-hole but now I'm finding out that he cut all the wires to the old alarm panel. The alarm panel is still there, he just cut all the wires.  I have about 30 wires coming in and they all have 4 wires  in each (red, black, yellow, green). I've stripped them all and was planning on plugging in 12 at a time and going through the house and opening/closing everything to see which was which. 

First problem, not all are showing as closed. Most seem to be hooked up to green and yellow (I've tested all other 2 wire combinations and found one yellow/red closed circuit). All the windows and doors are closed so does open mean i have a short? a faulty switch? What's the best way to discover what the problem is?

Second problem, of the 12 closed lines I've been able to find (mostly yellow green but some by testing other combinations), only 3 were triggered when going through the house. Maybe this is the same solution as above? 

The sensors in my house are likely 20 years old, perhaps that is the problem. But is that more likely bad wires or bad sensors? The window sensors are magnet based and buried in the wood, the doors are little ball sensors in the hinge side of the jam. 

I appreciate any help on this. On the bright side, I have 3 out of 30 so i'm 10% done 

Another thought... is there any way to avoid digging out each sensor and using a wire tracer? 

I had similar problem and had to trace all my wires due to missing labels. I shorted the wire on the sensor side temporarily then using the multimeter on the panel I was able to find out which sensor belongs to which wire

I used a wire tracer and it worked out great. I als found that some of my wired zones no longer work so I just repacked them with wireless zig bee sensors.