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 439

District of Picton Quarter ending 30 June 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
133	24 April 1876	William Brown Read Mary Ann Jarrant	William Brown Read Mary Ann Tarrant 💍 1876/1200	Bachelor Spinster	Engine Driver	33 23	Picton Road Picton Road	4 years 2 years	Church of St John's in the Wilderness, Picton Road	76/1880		24 April 1876	Rev. W. Ronaldson, Picton
134	11 May 1876	James William Nichols Ellen Hart	James William Nichols Ellen Hart 💍 1876/1456	Bachelor Spinster	Sawmiller	24 18	Picton Road Picton Road	14 months 7 years	At the Residence of Abraham Hart, Picton Road	76/1620	Abraham Hart, Father of Minor	11 May 1876	Rev. J. S. Rishworth, Blenheim
135	1 June 1876	Frederick Henry Hayward Mary Hannam	Frederick Henry Hayward Mary Hannam 💍 1876/1201	Bachelor Spinster	Gentleman	30 19	Picton Picton	4 days 6 months	Holy Trinity Church, Picton	76/1881	Mary Hannam, Mother of Minor	1 June 1876	Rev. W. Ronaldson, Picton
136	20 June 1876	Joseph Wilkinson Goodall Margaret Daniel Duncan	Joseph Wilkinson Goodall Margaret Daniel Duncan 💍 1876/1203	Bachelor Spinster	Officer of Custom	36 20	Picton The Grove	11 years 1.5 years	At the residence, Raikoura, of A. S. Duncan	76/1883	A. S. Duncan, Father of Minor	20 June 1876	Rev. W. Ronaldson, Picton
137	26 June 1876	David Joseph Jones Kate Blaymires	David Joseph Tomsey Creech Kate Blagmires 💍 1876/1202	Bachelor Widow	Laborer	24 40	Kenepuru Sound Kenepuru Sound	3 years 14 years	Holy Trinity Church, Picton	76/1882		26 June 1876	Rev. W. Ronaldson, Picton
138	29 June 1876	Stephen Horton Catherine Coutts	Stephen Horton Catherine Coutts 💍 1876/854	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer Servant	27 27	Nydia Bay Sound Nydia Bay Sound	6 months 2 weeks	Register Office, Picton	76/1884		29 June 1876	James Alexander, Registrar

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).