Various original documents are available pertaining to St Peters.
For fairly obvious reasons only some of these can be included in the archive, via the links below, but as many of those that can be referenced by the public will be listed here along with the mechanisms for doing so.
Parish Register
The Parish Registers of St Peters, including Baptisms, Marriages / Banns and Burials from 1575 to various points in the twentieth century are available at Rugby Library and the Warwick Records Centre on microfilm. See the online catalogue for Warwickshire Libraries or the online catalogue for Warwick Records Centre details of dates covered. The earliest of these records can be seen here, with an article discussing the various family names seen in the two villages during the 16th and 17th centuries available here.
A narrower range of records has been digitised. The “Family Search” website gives free access to Parish Records, along with detailed background information. They are also available on paid websites such as Ancestry.co.uk, Findmypast.co,uk, Myheritage.com and TheGenealogist.co,uk, all of which provide other services. Some of these can be accessed for free in local libraries.
Note (to people considering Family History research), that there are also civil records in these areas, such as the free index of Birth, Marriage and Death 1837-1915, or the ranges from 1916 onwards, available from the commercial websites discussed above.
Rugby Library is also a good place to find local history information, including back issues of the Rugby Advertiser with details of various Church events. See here for details of alternative sources of local history, including the digitised British Newspaper Archive.
Memorial Index
In addition to the burial records referenced above, there are some initiatives relating to mapping cemeteries. Most notable is the project carried out by the Church Lawford and King’s Newnham Women’s Institute in 1980, where they mapped in great detail all of the monuments erected prior to 1900. It included drawings of the various types of gravestones and details of inscriptions. This proved especially invaluable as some years later various monuments were moved, and over the past 40 years or so some of them have become less legible. This index is held at the Warwick Records Centre – an example is shown here. A more recent review was made by the Birmingham and Midland Society for Genealogy and Heraldry, recording all monuments up to 1988. This is sold commercially via the Midland Ancestors website.
Other reference documents relating to the expansion of the graveyard at St Peters and an initial mapping of graves is also held at the Warwick Records Centre.
Electoral Roll
During the early part of the twentieth century there was an Electoral Roll maintained by St Peter’s – see here for details. This was part of the Church’s role in Social Governance, as discussed here.
Tithe System
From many years ago, the Village economy was based around two major payments. Prior to 1918 the land was either owned by the Lord of the Manor or the Church. As well as owning land (known as Glebe Land), the Church had additional fiscal rights over the Parish as a whole. The tenants of the land in the parish had to pay both rent to their Landlord – typically the Lord of the Manor, but also 10% of the produce from their land had to be handed over to the church in what was known as a tithe. Each tenant would control a number of parcels of land and each of these was known as a tithe. See here for more details and links.
Glossary of Church-related terms (link)
The Glossary produced by Ted Pearson has been used to create a separate page of useful terms here.
A project carried out by the Church Lawford and King’s Newnham Women’s Institute in 1980 documented the flora of St Peters, with many drawings and detailed descriptions – see here for more details.
