XML : deserialize XML document to C# collection of objects

I need some help to point out what I do wrong here. I have searched SO and tried different ways to load this XML and I just could not see what would have caused this error:

System.InvalidOperationException: There is an error in XML document (1, 1). ---> System.Xml.XmlException: Data at the root level is invalid. Line 1, position 1.

  <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>  <folderlist xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">  <foldersetting>    <id>1</id>    <source>      <path>\\USApps2\AVL\Attachments</path>      <datelastread>2016-01-25T10:51:12.6030162-08:00</datelastread>      <filter>        <owner>US\</owner>        <filetype>*</filetype>      </filter>    </source>    <destination>      <path>E:\UserData\AVL</path>      <overwrite>false</overwrite>    </destination>  </foldersetting>  <foldersetting>    <id>2</id>    <source>      <path>\\TWAVLSVR\AVL\Attachments</path>      <datelastread>2016-01-22T10:51:12.6030162-08:00</datelastread>      <filter>        <owner>TW\</owner>        <filetype>PDF</filetype>      </filter>    </source>    <destination>      <path>E:\UserData\AVL</path>      <overwrite>false</overwrite>    </destination>  </foldersetting>  <foldersetting>    <id>3</id>    <source>      <path>E:\UserData\AVL</path>      <datelastread>2016-01-22T10:51:12.6030162-08:00</datelastread>      <filter>        <owner>US\</owner>        <filetype>*</filetype>      </filter>    </source>    <destination>      <path>E:\UserData\AVL\Web</path>      <overwrite>false</overwrite>    </destination>  </foldersetting>    

Here is my class definition:

  [Serializable()]  public class Filter  {      [XmlElement("owner")]      public string Owner {get; set;}        [XmlElement("filetype")]      public string FileType { get; set; }  }    [Serializable()]  public class SourceFolder  {      [XmlElement("path")]      public string Path { get; set; }        [XmlElement("datelastread")]      public DateTime DateLastRead { get; set; }        [XmlElement("filter")]      public Filter FilterTypes { get; set; }  }    [Serializable()]  public class DestinationFolder  {      [XmlElement("path")]      public string Path { get; set; }        [XmlElement("overwrite")]      public bool OverWrite { get; set; }  }    [Serializable()]  public class FolderSetting  {      [XmlElement("id")]      public int ID { get; set; }        [XmlElement("source")]      public SourceFolder Source { get; set; }        [XmlElement("destination")]      public DestinationFolder Destination { get; set; }  }    [Serializable()]  [XmlRoot("folderlist")]  public class FolderList  {      public FolderList()      {          FolderSettings = new List<FolderSetting>();      }        [XmlElement("foldersetting")]      public List<FolderSetting> FolderSettings;  }    

Here I deserialize the XML:

  XmlSerializer serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(FolderList));  using (StringReader reader = new StringReader("C:\\Folders.xml"))  {      FolderList folders = (FolderList)(serializer.Deserialize(reader));  }    

I have followed one suggestion on here to populate the classes I have and serialize it to make sure I get the proper format for my classes and it still doesn't help. Hopefully, someone could see what I'm missing here.