Season’s Greetings for 2022

It’s been another strange year and not much has changed.  The virus continues to mutate, and in the meantime, we continue to work from home, wear masks, and try to get through another year.  Thank you for your support and patience.

Research has been high on many people’s priority list and this year our team completed 129 projects in 79 communities. Many of these projects involved obtaining documents for dual citizenship purposes and as a result we are pleased to announce the acquisition of a dual citizenship specialist to our team. 

Maria Pia Maiuri has law degrees in both Italian and Spanish law and speaks Italian, Spanish and English.  Since our mandate is to assist you in doing things yourself, we will be offering a variety of services, from a simple proofing of your application, to obtaining your Italian documents, and even reconstructing missing records where possible. Of course, if you need help of any kind we will be there for you.

Also new to our team is Giuseppe Lecce who will be handling land and property record searches since these documents can often lead us to living relatives. 

Giuseppe Baffa has had a slow year thanks to the very strict Co-vid regulations in the State Archives of Cosenza but that has finally opened back up to normal access.  Parish records in this Province are also becoming more available thanks to his persistence.  If you have Italian, Arboresh or Albanian roots Giuseppe is your man!

Catasto Onciario research is becoming more popular now that so many of you have been able to take your family tree back into the 1700’s.  The Catasto Onciario was researched in 13 towns.

I have been kept busy with administration but have also found a niche in LIVE transmissions on Facebook and Instagram.  Thank you for your support and comments, they are much appreciated.  You seem to enjoy seeing the towns and their scandals come alive and I hope to continue these video’s in 2022.  I am also exploring the possibility of doing webinars in 2022. If you have topics to suggest please email your suggestions.

Your donations and contributions to our Digitization of restoration fund is much appreciated and although we didn’t complete any projects this year we are negotiating with the parish priests in Villa Santa Lucia and Atina.  We have chosen to collect your contributions and use them in this way rather than give small amounts to the various parish priests.

The cost of using PayPal for sending money is around 3-4% and several of you have asked for alternatives.  We are pleased to announce that we can now accept transfers from WISE whose rates are significantly lower.   The transfer instructions will be included on your invoice but if you choose to continue with PayPal we do ask that you chose the Family &Friends option. Paypal’s new method of currency exchange makes it difficult to send the exact amount of the invoice. 

All of us at Angel Research wish you a very successful year of research as more records become available to us.

Ann, Rita, Serena, Irene, Maria, Maria Pia,                Giuseppe Baffa and Giuseppe Lecce