Intentions to Marry, 1875

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840387, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Luke at Archives NZ Wellington, May 16 2025.

This register is quite fragile and some of the pages are damaged or even missing.

Page 598

District of Lyttelton Quarter ending 31 December 1875

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
218	26 October 1875	John McGorman Elizabeth Snowsell	John McGorman Elizabeth Snoswell 💍 1875/2380	Batchelor Spinster	Detective Police force Domestic Servant	35 19	Lyttelton Christchurch	18 months 4 months	The House of The Revd Joseph Berry	75/2039	A person in Colony having authority	26 October 1875	Revd Joseph Berry
219	13 November 1875	Stephen Purcell Catherine Fennessy	Stephen Purcell Catharine Fennessy 💍 1875/2867	Batchelor Spinster	Engine Driver Duties	31 21	Lyttelton Lyttelton	10 years 7 weeks	The Roman Catholic Chapel	75/3094		13 November 1875	Revd Francis Del Monte
220	1 December 1875	Daniel Rail Jane McRae	Daniel Ball Jane McRae 💍 1875/2752 Daniel Ross Jane Marshall 💍 1876/688	Batchelor Spinster	Seaman Servant	29 27	Lyttelton Lyttelton	8 years 2 years	The Roman Catholic Chapel	75/2364		1 December 1875	Revd Francis Del Monte
221	5 December 1875	William Farze Ann Harry Rouse		Batchelor Spinster	Clerk Duties	23 21	Lyttelton Lyttelton	2 years 10 years	The Holy Trinity Church	75/2912		5 December 1875	Revd Frederick C Lloyd
222	11 December 1875	Edward Brelow Rose Rundall	Edward Breton Rose Randall 💍 1875/2466	Batchelor Spinster	Backlastman Domestic Servant	36 years 25 years	Lyttelton Christchurch	2 years 1 month	The Roman Catholic Chapel Christchurch	75/2654		11 December 1875	Revd Dean Parrie Chareyre
223	13 December 1875	Charles Cook Kate Crowley	Charles Cook Kate Crowley 💍 1875/2731	Batchelor Spinster	Teacher Domt Duties	35 20	Christchurch Lyttelton	12 years 8 months	St Lukes Church Christchurch	75/3010		13 December 1875	Revd E A Lingard
224	24 December 1875	Patrick McCormick Mary Elizabeth Jeffreys	Patrick McCormick Mary Elizabeth Jeffereys 💍 1875/2753	Batchelor Widow	Labourer Wakewoman	35 37	Lyttelton Lyttelton	3 days 10 years	The Roman Catholic Chapel	75/2368		24 December 1875	Revd Frances Del Monte
225	29 December 1875	Gilbert Brown Alice Emily Anderson		Batchelor Spinster	Mariner House maid	34 20 years	Lyttelton Lyttelton	3 days 3 days	The House Mrs I Cather St Davids St Lyttelton	No person in Colony having authority		29 December 1875	Revd H Mc Gowan

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).