Genealogy Chat

Does anyone know anything about downloading the TIFF viewer in order to see original census pages? I just cannot download it - no reason given - and I've only bought 72 hours worth of credit! Thanks, Bev

well that is interesting Sue, because I had it on my computer at work all morning - working fine! In the afternoon I closed the site and when I reopened it wouldn't work! I thought it was down to my ancient work computer playing up! But my nice new one at home won't pick up anything and neither will Kev's laptops. Perhaps its them and not us then .................... do they ever put up 'gone wrong' messages? Cheers Bev

The first time they put the 1841 census up and I tried to look at it it wouldn't work. Then I found out you had to download the 'alternatiff' viewer, and I managed that from the alternatiff website, but then I installed a game for my daughter which had a newer (I think) version of Quick Time included with it, and from then on the 1841 is back to square one! The alternatiff website says if Quick Time has set itself as your default Tiff file viewer there is a way of changing it, but not if you have an old version of Quick Time, and if I have understood their advice correctly they say if you have trouble getting alternatiff to work, you need to get a new version of Quick Time just to turn Quick Time off!! That seems absolutely crazy to me, especially as I can view all the other images on British Origins perfectly well, including the 1871 census, so why on earth have they chosen such a troublesome viewer for the 1841? Also, whenever I have sent British Origins an email about this problem I have got no answer, and some of the 'contact us' links weren't working when I tried and I had to look all over for a way to contact them. Anyway, I apologise if this is not connected with your problem, but I really needed to let off steam about that! Kate.

British Origins is a dreadful site high priced and their viewer downloads a pain. I had to do a google search to find a newer (free) version to use and even then it kept crashing. I managed to research and print off as much as possible between the crashes then sent them an e-mail telling them to cancel and I would never use their services again.

Still can't get it to work - the viewer SAYS its downloaded, registered and the sample/testpages are working perfectly, but still can't get an 1841 image up. Sent 2 e.mails - no answer as yet! Having read your comments, I'm not optimistic! Bev

We've decided we're not going to let them get away with it! My Kev has a phone number and an address for British Origins and he is going to phone them at 10 when they open! (And trust me, you do not want to be on the receiving end of one of Kev's 'angry' phone calls!) Will let you know what happens! Bev PS He's cut and pasted this thread to quote at them too

Kev rang British Origins and as usual, got some results! First, the viewer is definitely NOT working (as if we didn't know) but should be up and running again by about 5.00pm. Second, they have now put an error message up on their HomePage, but in future, such messages will be put on the Log in Page as most of us use that more than the Homepage. If you need to contact them, do it through: (sorry, e.mail addy won't come up even with brackets, if you need it, message me) Oh, and they are going to rethink the viewer as it is causing so many problems but obviously that won't happen overnight. Good luck then! Bev