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 179

District of Thames Quarter ending 30 June 1877 Registrar Edward Henry Power

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
687	1st April 1877	John Meagher Margaret Murphy	John Meagher Margaret Murphy 💍 1877/843	Bachelor Spinster	Miner Domestic	25 years 23 years	Phinemuri Parawai	8 years 7 years	In the office of the Registrar of Marriages Thames	77/62		4th April 1877	E. H. Power
688	4th April 1877	Thomas Davison Eliza Argan	Thomas Davison Eliza Organ 💍 1877/890	Bachelor Spinster	Miner Domestic	27 years 25 years	Karaka Karaka	5 years 5 years	In the dwelling house occupied by Thomas Davison Karaka Thames	77/801		11th April 1877	Revd James Hill
689	11th April 1877	Morgan Davis Elizabeth Daddow	Morgan Davies Elizabeth Daddow 💍 1877/879	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer Domestic	50 years 40 years	Egararu Thames	8 years 2 years	In the office of the Registrar of Marriages Thames	77/94		11th April 1877	E. H. Power
690	11th April 1877	James Hindman Emma Quilliam	James Hindman Emma Gwilliam 💍 1877/901	Bachelor Spinster	Baker	23 years 19 years	Thames Waiotahi	7 years 6 years	In the dwelling house occupied by Mrs Gerald Quilliam Waiotahi	77/802	James Quilliam "Father"	11th April 1877	Revd James Hill
691	18th April 1877	Robert Russell Trotter Fanny Jane Drouin	Robert Russell Trotter Fanny Jane Drouin 💍 1877/908	Bachelor Widow	Bush Contractor Domestic	40 years 28 years	Kaimu Tapu	6 years 7 years	In the dwelling house occupied by William Steel, Killerston Street, Karangahua	77/803		18th April 1877	Revd James Hill
692	23rd April 1877	Thomas Scanlan Honora Roughan	Thomas Scanlan Honora Ronghan 💍 1877/1422	Widower Spinster	Miner Domestic	36 years 28 years	Thames Thames	8 years 4 years	In St Francis' Roman Catholic Church Thames	77/1348		23rd April 1877	Revd S. O'Hagamon
693	30th April 1877	William Avell Weatherley Keen Caroline Howell nee Redman	William Attwood Weatherley Keen Caroline Howell 💍 1877/874	Bachelor Widow	Miner Milliner	46 years 40 years	Thames Thames	8 years 5 years	In the dwelling house occupied by Mrs Caroline Howell, Pollen St, Thames	77/793		30th April 1877	Revd J. J. Hinton
694	1st May 1877	John Howard Katherine Davey	John Howard Catherine Davey 💍 1877/880	Bachelor Spinster	Storekeeper Domestic	29 years 29 years	Thames Thames	8 years 8 years	In the office of the Registrar of Marriages Thames	77/98	Andrew Davey "Mother"	1st May 1877	E. H. Power

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).