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 282

District of Wanganui 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
47	12 August 1876	Neils Yeason Anna Yeason		Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	27 years 33 years	Wanganui Wanganui	4 weeks 18 months	At residence of Mr Davis, Wanganui	76/1760		12 August 1876	Revd. Mr. Brown
48	16 August 1876	Frederick Smith Eleanor Jane Campbell	Frederick Martin Smith Eleanor Jane Campbell 💍 1876/2513	Bachelor Spinster	Carrier	25 years 19 years	Wanganui Wanganui	3 years 19 years	English Church, Wanganui	76/1761	Jane Campbell, Mother	16 August 1876	Revd. B. R. Taylor
49	16 August 1876	Andrew Hunter Harriet Wright	Andrew Hunter Harriett Wright 💍 1876/1662 Andrew Blair Mary Wright 💍 1876/1540	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	36 years 21 years	Wanganui Wanganui	3 days 21 years	At residence of Mr Wright, Brunswick Line	76/1763		16 August 1876	Revd. Mr. Barnicoat
50	17 August 1876	William Hallins Annie O'Connor	William Hallins Annie O'Connor 💍 1876/1665 William Osmund Mary O'Connor 💍 1876/253	Bachelor Widow	Miner	35 years 24 years	Wanganui Wanganui	18 months 3 weeks	Roman Catholic Chapel, Wanganui	76/1766		17 August 1876	Revd. Father Kirk
51	5 September 1876	John Boldra Elizabeth Drury	John Bolden Elizabeth Drury 💍 1876/1779	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	30 years 23 years	Wanganui Wanganui	2 months 6 weeks	In the Registrar's Office	76/1755		5 September 1876	M. J. South, Regr.
52	13 September 1876	George Adams Catherine Heffernan	George James Adams Catherine Heffernan 💍 1876/1666	Bachelor Spinster	Groom	32 years 22 years	Wanganui Wanganui	2 years 1 year	In the Roman Catholic Chapel, Wanganui	76/1767		12 September 1876	Revd. Father Kirk
53	19 September 1876	William McGonagle Ellen Loveridge	William McGonagle Ellen Loveridge 💍 1876/1780 William Edmonson Jane Loveridge 💍 1876/2562	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	27 years 21 years	Wanganui Wanganui	5 months 2 days	In the Registrar's Office, Wanganui	76/1756		19 September 1876	M. J. South, Regr.
54	23 September 1876	Frederick Wilson Dickson Agnes Deborah Huddle	Frederick E Hickson Agnes D Huddell 💍 1876/1657	Bachelor Spinster	Sheep Inspector	35 years 25 years	Wanganui Wanganui	9 months 8 years	At Rutland Hotel, Wanganui	76/1762		23 September 1876	Revd. Mr. Barnicoat

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).