Intentions to Marry, 1876

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840388, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Alexandra at Archives NZ Wellington, January 31 2025

A few of the pages are missing.

Page 275

District of Wanganui Quarter ending 31 March 1876

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
1	3 January 1876	George Balding Annie Butter	George Balding Annie Butler 💍 1876/419	Bachelor Spinster	Mariner	30 yrs 28 yrs	Wanganui Wanganui	2 years 18 mos	Presbyterian Church Wanganui	76/315		3 January 1876	Revd John Elmslie
2	3 January 1876	Andrew Christie Hannah Austin	Andw Christie Hannah Austin 💍 1876/421	Bachelor Spinster	Miller	43 yrs 24 yrs	Wanganui Wanganui	10 years many years	Private Residence of Mr Austin Wanganui	76/314		3 January 1876	Revd John Elmslie
3	4 January 1876	John Anderson Margaret Buntin	John Anderson Margaret Harkness 💍 1876/564 John Anderson Jane Patterson Guiney 💍 1876/2644 John Anderson Mary Ann Chisholm 💍 1876/3107 John Anderson Minie Harold 💍 1876/344	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	33 yrs 20 yrs	Wanganui Wanganui	8 years 10 years	Private Residence of Mr Willis Wanganui	76/316	John Buntin Father	4 January 1876	Revd John Elmslie
4	4 January 1876	Patrick Maxwell Mary Cronin	Patrick Maxwell Mary Cronin 💍 1876/49	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	33 yrs 20 years	Wanganui Wanganui	3 days 3 days	Roman Catholic Church Wanganui	76/36	Revd Father Kirk	4 January 1876	John [illegible] Elmslie
5	5 January 1876	Samuel George Handley Muriel Brown	Samuel George Handley Meriel Brown 💍 1876/432	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	22 years 19 years	Nukumaru Putiki	4 years 4 years	English Church Putiki	76/304	John Brown Father	5 January 1876	Revd B.K. Taylor
6	15 January 1876	Thomas Herbert Bell Annie Bell	Thomas Herbert Annie Bell 💍 1876/254	Widower Spinster	Engineer	40 years 29 yrs	Wanganui Wanganui	6 mos 2 years	Registrar's Office Wanganui	76/40	Father	15 January 1876	M. F. South, Deputy Registrar
7	1 February 1876	Francis James Munro Emma Eliza Walker	Francis James Jones Emma E Walker 💍 1876/435	Bachelor Spinster	Store Keeper	28 years 19 years	Wanganui Wanganui	3 weeks 19 years	At Mr George Walker's Private Residence, Mount Jowell	76/304	George Walker, Father	1 February 1876	Revd Mr Bowie
8	4 February 1876	Alexander Bell Sarah Ye Wai [illegible]	Alexander Bell Sarah Te Wai Hana 💍 1876/850	Bachelor Spinster	[illegible]	33 years 31 years	Wanganui Wanganui	1 year 1 year	In the English Church Putiki	76/990		4 February 1876	Revd B. K. Taylor
9	18 February 1876	John Thomas Nowell Mary Ann Phillips	John T Nowell Mary Ann Phillips 💍 1876/437	Bachelor Spinster	[illegible]	36 years 26 years	Wanganui Wanganui	16 months 4 years	At the residence of Mr John Bruine [illegible]	76/309		18 February 1876	Revd Mr Bowie

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).