Intentions to Marry, 1877

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840389, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Luke at Archives NZ Wellington, April 16 2025

Page 165

District of Drury Quarter ending 30 September 1877 Registrar A.depMartelli

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
266	July 1877	Alexander Maxwell Margaret Mills	Alexander Maxwell Margaret Mills 💍 1877/1586	Bachelor Minor	Settler	21 19	Evans Redoubt Pukekohe West	13 years 12	In the Residence of Mr Alexander Mills	77/1535	Alexander Mills, Father	July 1877	Rev James Galloway
267	19 July 1877	Alexander Owen Jones Janet Johnston Brisbane	Alexander Owen Jones Janet Johnstone Brisbane 💍 1877/1583	Bachelor Minor	Farmer	22 19	Ararimu Maketu	3 Months 1 Year	In the Residence of Mr W. Daniel Brisbane	77/1533	Daniel Brisbane, Father	19 July 1877	Rev Thomas Norrie
268	August 1877	Andrew Austin Mary Jane Sutton	Andrew Austin Mary Anne Sutton 💍 1877/1582	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	21 24	Onehunga Drury	3 days 20 years	In the Episcopalian Church, Drury	77/1532			Rev Robert H. Biggs
269	17 August 1877	James Shearin Elizabeth Brown	James Sheerin Elizabeth Brown 💍 1877/1590	Bachelor Minor	Labourer	24 15	Ararimu Maketu	1 year 11	In the dwelling house of Thomas Brown	77/1530	Thomas Brown, Father	17 August 1877	Rev James M. Donald
270	27 August 1877	Robert Fisher Marion Brickett	Robert Fisher Marion Crickett 💍 1877/1587	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	28 22	Cambridge Pokeno	3 days 2 years	In the dwelling house of Mr Samuel Brickett, in Drury	77/1536		27 August 1877	Rev James Galloway
271	27 August 1877	Robert Brickett Mary Cunningham	Robert Crickett Mary Cunningham 💍 1877/1588	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	27 25	Cambridge Pokeno	3 days 3 years	In the dwelling house of Mr Samuel Brickett, in Drury	77/1537		27 August 1877	Rev James Galloway
272	6 September 1877	Martin Mahon Anne Galvin	Martin Mahon Anne Galvin 💍 1877/1589	Widower Minor	Labourer	35 18	Pukekohe West Pukekohe	3 years 2	No Certificate Issued
273	16 September 1877	Martin Mahon Anne Galvin	Martin Mahon Anne Galvin 💍 1877/1589	Widower Minor	Labourer	35 18	Pukekohe West Pukekohe West	3 years 2	In the Residence of Mr Michael Tobin	77/1538	Mary Galvin, Mother	16 September 1877	Rev James M. Donald
274	25 September 1877	William Taylor Elizabeth Jane Proude	William Taylor Elizabeth Jane Proude 💍 1877/2327	Bachelor Minor	Settler	23 19	Waikato Razor Back	3 days 3 years	At Peter's Church, in the Forest, Drury	77/2320	Anne Proude, Grandmother	25 September 1877	Rev Joseph Bates

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 1899. More registers are being added almost every week.

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).