The system has been working well. I was not able to see how to get to the old documents (pre-1985 for Ritchie) and finally called and asked. The answer is, it only works on Internet Explorer, not on Google Chrome or Firefox the two browsers I had been using. When I went to the site on Internet Explorer, it came up as it should, with the far right book and page tabs. If you don't already have Silverlight, you will be prompted to install it.
Right click on the book and page, and there will be a download of Web Book and Page on the desktop. Then it works similarly to Tyler. The guy I talked to said something about the index only working with A. I thought he meant somewhere in the dropdown (far left) for A but I later discovered it was for each letter, but the dropdown starts 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A 10 11 etc. Some letters skip some numbers, and many numbers have multiple pages
To explain what I just said, at the far left at the top is a drop down starting BIRTH INDEX. If you go down, you get to DEED INDEX. Go to the drop down below that, and you get the letters A B etc Then go directly to the right of that letter drop down past some things, to Index Page No. and you get the numbers, starting with 1 going down ... 9 A 10 etc
Go to A and there probably will be at least 2 pages there. They use a system of The Main letter (such as C, for last names starting with C) then the next main letter, L M N R T Odd
It is a little more complicated than that, but it should be able to fiddle around and figure it out. When there wasn't enough of a name to make its own page, they grouped those together, using that system of Initial letter, then next important letter etc. and there are various names together.
Then if you want to look at the page (pages) listed for that name in the index. This is a grantor-grantee index, and the name is in the middle, grantors to the left, grantees to the right, and further right are descriptions, then book and page, and if lease, etc.
When you have the book and page to look up, from the middle of the page top drop down, select your book (e.g. DEED BOOK) then a drop down for the book, and a space to type in the page.
He said you can't print and download yet from these older deeds but should be soon.
For the new system, you create an account, then you can set a document up to download, and pay with a credit card. I haven't done that yet, but have set up my account.
Please ask if this isn't clear. I probably left out too many steps in the index part, but it is easy to show and sort of hard to write about.