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 349

District of Wellington Quarter ending 30 September 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
197	28 August 1876	William Law Margaret Bruley	William Dawson Margaret Bromley 💍 1876/3140 William Lang Margaret Barry 💍 1876/1176 William Blair Margaret Neeley 💍 1877/181 William Brown Margaret Brown 💍 1876/3059 William Cross Margaret Hales 💍 1876/2679 William Brown Margaret Bartholomew 💍 1876/2512 William Gunn Margaret Bain 💍 1876/2821 William Gardner Margaret Bolger 💍 1876/2545 William Oswald Margaret McCraken 💍 1876/3256 William Lyons Margaret Callanun 💍 1876/1165 William Graham Margaret Moir 💍 1876/478 William Tracey Margaret Kirkwood 💍 1876/1733 George William Hutchins Margaret Bruce 💍 1876/1075	Bachelor Widow	Mariner Formerly Lyons	38 36	Wellington Wellington	2 years 2 years	Sisters House of Wm Dawrow, Abel Smith Street, Wellington	76/1782		28 August 1876	Rev. H. B. Redstone, United
198	29 August 1876	George Frederic Annie Searle Morrison	George Frederic Wilton Annie Searle Morcom 💍 1876/1950	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk	36 30	Wellington Wellington	18 months 6 months	Registrar's Office, Wellington	76/1831		29 August 1876	Registrar, Wellington
199	30 August 1876	George Brown Clarissa Ann Bruyer	George Brown Clarissa Ann Bowyer 💍 1876/3142 George Brown Mary Ann Barnett 💍 1877/195	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	22 19	The Upper Hutt The Upper Hutt	18 years 3 years	Wesleyan Chapel, Lower Hutt	76/1803	Edward Bruyer, Father	30 August 1876	Rev. W. G. Thomas, Pres
200	4 September 1876	Charles Standing Clara Christina Alden		Bachelor Spinster	Farmer Domestic Servant	22 20	Wellington Wellington	4 weeks 4 weeks	House of Mr Carl Ekdahl, Willis Barker Street, Wellington	76/1801	None in colony	Declaration of 4 September 1876	Rev. Edw. S. Nielsen, Pres
201	4 September 1876	Stephen Highly Ellen Stuart	S Flighty Ellen Stuart 💍 1876/1885	Bachelor Spinster	Sheepfarmer	28 20	Pahautanui Pahautanui	12 years 14 years	Cathedral of St Mary's, Hill Street, Wellington	76/1791	Charles Stuart, Father	Declaration of 4 September 1876	M. J. O'Reilly, CofE
202	5 September 1876	Alexander Shearer Mercy Lomas	Alexander Shearer Mercy Loma 💍 1876/1871	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Domestic Servant	26 18	Wellington Wellington	3 years 18 years	Primitive Methodist Chapel, Sydney St, Wellington	76/1799	Joseph Lomas, Father	Declaration of 5 September 1876	Rev. Robt. Ward, Prim

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).