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 323

District of Wellington 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	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
48	28 February 1876	Robert George Elizabeth Jones	Robert George Elizabeth Jones 💍 1876/351 William Robert Reid Elizabeth Jones 💍 1876/2268	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Domestic Servant	27 21	Wellington Wellington	3 years 3 years	House of Emma Bratites, [illegible] Square	76/354	28 February 1876	Rev. W. B. Redstone
49	29 February 1876	Joseph John Webb Elizabeth Louisa Wilson	Joseph John Webb Elizabeth June Wilson 💍 1876/233	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	25 20	Wellington Wellington	25 years 20 years	House of Alexander Wilson, Constable Street, Wellington	76/404	29 February 1876	Rev. John Moir
50	2 March 1876	William Burdaw Jane Rouse		Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	21 21	Wainuiomata Wainuiomata	4 years 21 years	Church of St. Retaas, Willis Street, Wellington	76/414	2 March 1876	Rev. [illegible]. Stoets
51	3 March 1876	Charles Libline Caroline [illegible] [illegible]	Charles Libline Caroline Murch 💍 1876/239	Bachelor Spinster	Seaman Domestic Servant	25 21	Wellington Wellington	18 months 18 years	House of Revd. John Moir, Woolcombe Street, Wellington	76/552	3 March 1876	Rev. John Moir
52	6 March 1876	James George Jennett Sarah Doughty	James George Jerret Sarah Doughty 💍 1876/335	Bachelor Spinster	Carter Domestic Servant	28 25	Wellington Wellington	18 months 12 months	House of Mrs. Tolleus, Karory [illegible] House, Wellington	76/552	6 March 1876	Rev. C. S. Ogg
53	9 March 1876	Abraham Demson Mary Ann White	Abraham Dennison Mary Ann White 💍 1876/96	Bachelor Spinster	Lawyer Domestic Servant	28 32	Wellington Wellington	3 months 3 days	Registrar's Office, Wellington	76/82	9 March 1876	Registrar, Wellington
54	10 March 1876	James Eagle Eliza Ann Bradly	James Eagle Eliza Ann Brady 💍 1876/235	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Domestic Servant	36 38	Wellington Wellington	3 weeks 3 weeks	Church of England, Upper Hutt	76/41	10 March 1876	Rev. C. H. S. Nicholls

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).