Intentions to Marry, 1871

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840383, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Luke Howison at Archives NZ Wellington, November 15 2024

Page 261

District of Wellington Quarter ending 31 December 1871

No	Date of Notice	Names and Surnames of Parties	BDM Match	Condition	Calling or Profession	Age	Dwelling Place	Length of Residence	Marriage Place	Folio	Consent	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
87	04 October 1871	Joe Corbett Bryant Eleanor Barrow	Joe Corbett Bryant Eleanor Barrows 💍 1871/6885	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer Domestic Servant	30 24	Charice Valley Johnsonville	30 years 24 years	Registrar's Office	72/21		04 October 1871	R C Hammerton
88	06 October 1871	Gustav Altoratio Rummer Dora Christine Fredericke Butterman		Bachelor Spinster	Sheep Farmer House Servant	33 22	Kaiwatu Rivet East Coast Wellington	10 days 10 months	Church of England Masterton	72/89		06 October 1871	Officiating Minister at Masterton
89	09 October 1871	William James Kirk Catherine Buchanan Leslie	William James Kirk Catherine Buchanan Leslie 💍 1871/9219	Bachelor Spinster	Stereotypes de Robedie Melbourne	22 26	Wellington Wellington	10 months 4 days	House of W J Kirk			09 October 1871	Rev Thomas Buddle
90	14 October 1871	Martin Minogue Hannah McCarthy	Martin Minogue Hannah McCarthy 💍 1871/6864	Bachelor Spinster	Grocer Launder Gad	28 20	Wellington Wellington	4 days 11 years	Roman Catholic Church	71/1007	Alex McCarthy Father	14 October 1871	Rev J J O'Reilly
91	14 October 1871	Robert Lynch Cotton Birch Emily Frances Gibson	Robert Lynch Cotton Birch Emily Frances Gibson 💍 1871/9138	Bachelor Spinster	Builder D C Gibson	36 22	Wellington Wellington	4 days 4 months	House of James Cumming			14 October 1871	Rev J Cumming
92	19 October 1871	Barnet Phelps Annie Noah Abbott	Barnet Philps Annie Norah Abbott 💍 1871/7272	Bachelor Spinster	Shopman Domestic Servant	28 26	Wellington Wellington	28 years 3 years	House of Mrs Phelps Pipitea Point	72/158		19 October 1871	Rev J Dean
93	21 October 1871	William Beard Bridget Yaggart	William Beaird Bridget Taggart 💍 1871/6888	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	32 32	Charice Charice	4 years 4 years	Registrar's Office Lambton Quay	72/22		21 October 1871	R C Hammerton

These records have been automatically transcribed and must be verified using the page image (below)

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What is an Intention to Marry?

The 1854 Marriage Act required Pakeha settlers (and later Maori) to register their intention to marry from 1855. The resulting Notices of intention to marry were sent by the district registrars to the Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages and bound into large volumes, each containing a year of notices. These registers were eventually deposited with Archives New Zealand.

What information does an ItM record?

A typical Intention to Marry notice records:

the bride and groom's full names
occupation of the groom (and sometimes the bride)
their ages
district where the marriage would take place
how long they had resided in the district
Where the marriage would take place (eg, a specific church)
Who would officiate the marriage (eg, a minister)
The date of the notice and also a date when the certificate was issued. Marriages had to take place within 3 months, and usually occurred within a week or so of the certificate date.
If one of the parties was under 21, a parent who consented to their marriage was usually specified

These details can provide clues for genealogical and historical research. Knowing the date and district makes it easier to look for wedding notices in Papers Past, and the amount of time that the parties had resided in a district can offer clues to whether a person was born in NZ, or when they immigrated.

However, finding individual records in the Intentions to Marry registers was typically a slow and manual process, usually requiring an in-person visit to Archives NZ's Wellington office (during limited opening hours) and using a handwritten card catalogue index to look up individual names.

Eight years of the registers had been digitised by Archives NZ prior to 2024, but even these digital versions required the use of a manual index and usually examining several pages to locate specific records.

What is the Intentions to Marry Project?

This project aims to transcribe the New Zealand Intentions to Marry registers (from 1855 to 1925) with the assistance of new technology (AI), making the records freely available and easily searchable.

The ITM records have also been cross-referenced with the registered marriages at DIA Births, Deaths and Marriages, where possible (a small fraction of the recorded intentions to marry did not become a registered marriage).

Currently we have almost all records between 1855 and 1894. More registers will be added as the project continues.

The project is led by Luke Howison, a web developer who made the free genealogical research search tool NZ Ancestor Search Helper and Archway-style Collections Search. There are also some wonderful volunteers assisting with digitising the registers.

Can I volunteer to help?

Yes, you can! You can sign up to correct errors in the transcribed records and match ITMs with registered marriages.

I am also looking for Wellington-based volunteers to help me digitise more years of the registers. I can provide lighting equipment and a 'clicker' (to trigger your phone's camera).

How is the transcription done?

There are several steps to digitising and transcribing the records:

Digitising the registers (taking clean, straight, high-quality photos)
Processing the digitised pages by straightening, cropping and sharpening the images
Transcribing each page with a combination of AI tools
Matching each ITM with a registered marriage when possible
Human verification of the transcribed information

The main LLM (AI) used are the Google Gemini Pro and Flash models, which have excellent 'Vision' capabilities, and a generous free tier.

Archives NZ has released the register years they have digitised (1865-69, 1872, 1874 and 1880) under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 license.

The Intention to Marry registers (up to 1925) are more than 100 years old, so their Crown Copyright has expired, putting them in the public domain. This also applies to any 'mechanical reproductions' (eg, pictures or photocopies) of their content without substantial alteration.

The transcribed records on this website are released under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal license, which allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, even for commercial purposes, while giving credit to the creator (NZ Intentions to Marry Project).