Panic

[Guinevere]

I've just clicked on my bookmark for Hugh Wallis' IGI batch numbers site and it's gone!

Can anyone tell me where it's hiding?

[Margaret in Burton]

Oooh same here.

Have you googled?

No it's not there. Oh heck!

[Just Gillian]

No idea Gwynne - but there have been a few postings on GR recently claiming that people were getting loads of virus warnings when they opened the page so maybe it is connected with that.

[garstonite]

thats a coincidence Gwynne...I`ve just been on hugh wallis site about 2 hrs last night...it was working fine...this morning about 90 mins ago it states that either the site is down or I have not spelt my web site address correctly....as I just clicked on my site reference which I have on Rootschat, I can only presume the sites down for a while...it was fine last night except for 1 or 2 times certain batch numbers didn`t come through....when you click on your batch number they go from blue to red....although a couple went red they didn`t appear...so as Gillian has said,maybe its been infected with a virus...allan

[merleyone]

There has been some correspondence on the Devon FHS site about this as it was reported that a Virus warnimg had appeared when an attempt to access the Hugh Wallis site was made. Hugh Wallis has responded, asserting that his site is not contaminated but pointing out that some viruses suggest contamination is present so their message containg the virus may then be downloaded.
It looks as though Hugh Wallis may now be checking that his site is NOT contaminated.

Merleyone

[Darksecretz]

ohhh thats a bit of a kacker!!

I much prefer HW to searching the LDS

[KiteRunner]

I remember I always used to get annoying popups from that site but that was before installing the Google pop-up blocker.

If you go onto Google and search for IGI Batch Numbers and name of county then look for the result which is on freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~hughwallis/IGIBatchNumbers/
then click on the Google cache for that result, the county page should come up showing all the batch numbers, but then you would need to copy and paste the batch number into FamilySearch as the links on the cached page won't work.

[Guinevere]

Thanks, Kate.

*wanders off in search of Earsham*

[WendyPusey]

I used that site yesterday morning, no problem, but like you all, I too cannot access it today. Hope they sort it out soon, it is so much easier to use.

[Jessbowbag]

I missed it earlier - I wondered too.

without ancestry access at the moment , it feels like my leg has been chopped off!

[BigShaz McCreadie]

Didn't know about this until I read this thread

I googled and found this message on rootschat from Hugh Wallis himself.....

It appears some people have reported getting virus warnings from the site but, unless it is in the stuff ancestry.com adds, there is no virus there, and certainly not one inserted by me. I suspect ancestry.com have taken it offline. I also suspect that the anti-virus software that is giving these warnings is over zealous and has applied a heuristic detection algorthm to produce the warnings - and those algorithms are well known for producing occasional "false positives". Most reputable anti-virus software like AVG and Norton report the site as clean (or did until it was taken down by ancestry.com)

Unfortunately I have no control over it since ancestry.com do not even provide a means for me to change the password that is necessary to update the site. If some evil hacker has obtained that password somehow I can do nothing about it.

Actually I have not even accessed nor updated the site myself for many months.

Having no time to investigate further I shall be leaving it in the hands of ancestry.com - but they have not had the courtesy even to contact me so I don't know to what extent they intend to address the issue

Thanks

Hugh

Here is the link for those who wish to look Hugh Wallis IGI WARNING VIRUS - Updated Family History Local History

[Christine in Herts]

Thanks for that update. I hadn't known until this thread.

I have to say that I don't what I'll do without my fix of the Hugh Wallis pages! It's such a basic tool that I have the link on the top bar - instead of being buried in the Favourites list!

Christine

[KiteRunner]

Christine, if you look at my post on page 1 of this thread there is a way round it; the only problem I can see will be that you have to manually copy the batch number onto FamilySearch instead of clicking on a link. If the site is gone for a long time then it might be worth copying all the pages from Google's cache and saving them onto our computers!

[Christine in Herts]

Christine, if you look at my post on page 1 of this thread there is a way round it; the only problem I can see will be that you have to manually copy the batch number onto FamilySearch instead of clicking on a link. If the site is gone for a long time then it might be worth copying all the pages from Google's cache and saving them onto our computers!

Thanks - I spotted your idea, but hadn't followed it up yet. It was more about the long-term ...

If the Hugh Wallis pages aren't recoverable, for some reason, is there any impediment to us adding the batch numbers to our PoW project in the Wiki? It wouldn't have the auto-search facility, but at least you could copy-paste into the regular IGI search pages. (It was one of those ideas that come to you when you're surfacing from sleep: in my case, this morning.)

Christine

[KiteRunner]

Not sure how Hugh Wallis would feel about that idea, Christine.

[Christine in Herts]

We wouldn't be replicating his site, which jumps directly to the FamilySearch site and triggers the search, nor do I suggest we should copy-pasting his info.

I certainly shouldn't want to tread on the toes of someone who'd made something so useful available to us all. If you think it's a good idea, apart from that risk, then one of us (e.g. me) could contact him to ask how he would feel about it.

It would take ages before we assembled the same amount of info that he has on those pages, even working collaboratively.

Christine

[KiteRunner]

Sorry, Christine, I misunderstood and thought you meant copy and paste from the Hugh Wallis site - I can't see any objection to getting a batch number from the IGI and adding it to the POW entry in the Wiki, but it would probably be best to raise the idea on the "Regional Projects" board so that the people involved with the POW project can discuss it.

[Mary from Italy]

Could we offer to host his site until the problem's sorted, or would that be too complicated?

[KiteRunner]

I would think "way too complicated", Mary, sorry!

[Merry Monty Montgomery]

Am I the only person who hasn't used the Hugh Wallis site for years?