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 593

District of Lyttelton Quarter ending 30 June 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
194	1 April 1875	Alexander Milne Sarah Elgar	Alex Milne Sarah Elgar 💍 1875/90	Widower Widow	Engineer	41 28	Lyttelton Lyttelton	3 years about 5 years	The Roman Catholic Chapel Lyttelton	75/1515		1 April 1875	The Revd Francis Del Monte
195	15 April 1875	Richard Clement Armstrong Mary Ann Jackson Hughes	Clement Richard Armstrong Mary Ann Jackson Hughes 💍 1875/1020	Batchelor Spinster	Engineer	28 27	Lyttelton Lyttelton	10 months 26 years	The House of Captn James Ruxton Jacksons Road Lyttelton	75/1180		15 April 1875	The Revd William Lee
196	3 May 1875	Thomas Carmichael Annie Grant	Thomas Carmichael Annie Grant 💍 1875/800	Batchelor Spinster	Seaman Domestic Servant	25 23	Lyttelton Lyttelton	5 years 2 months	The Presbyterian Church Lyttelton	75/872		3 May 1875	The Revd W. S. McGowan
197	5 May 1875	Peter Brown Annie Nurse	Peter Brown Annie Nurse 💍 1875/799	Batchelor Spinster	Seaman Domestic Servant	22 18	Lyttelton Lyttelton	4 years 18 years	The House of Mr Peter Brown Jacksons Road Lyttelton	75/871		5 May 1875	The Revd W. S. McGowan
198	12 May 1875	Antonio Gellety Delina Edwards	Antonio Gellety Selina Edwards 💍 1875/1053	Batchelor Spinster	Laborer Domestic Servant	27 22	Lyttelton Lyttelton	2 years 3 months	The Roman Catholic Chapel Lyttelton	75/1123		12 May 1875	The Revd Francis Del Monte
199	13 May 1875	James Wallace Eliza Moore	James Wallace Eliza Moore 💍 1875/801 James Woodward Celia Moore 💍 1876/91 James Wickens Ellen Moore 💍 1875/1925	Batchelor Spinster	Laborer Domestic Servant	29 22	Lyttelton Lyttelton	1 week 1 week	The House of the Revd W. S. McGowan Lyttelton	75/873		13 May 1875	The Revd W. S. McGowan
200	20 May 1875	John Thomas Gifford Sarah Jessee Turner	John Thomas Gifford Sarah Jessie Turner 💍 1875/802	Batchelor Spinster	Saw Trimmer Domestic Servant	30 22	Lyttelton Lyttelton	6 weeks 2 months	The House of the Revd W. S. McGowan Lyttelton	75/874		20 May 1875	The Revd W. S. McGowan
201	22 May 1875	Nicholas Radovinich Lizzie Condon	Nicolay Radovenich Lizzie Condon 💍 1875/1054	Batchelor Spinster	Laborer Domestic Servant	37 20	Lyttelton Lyttelton	3 years over 3 days	The House of Mr Radovinich Dublin Street Lyttelton	75/1124	Mary Condon mother	22 May 1875	The Revd Francis Del Monte

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).