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 291

District of Palmerston North Quarter ending 31 December 1877 Registrar Prot. N. Keeling

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
30	16 October 1877	Keneth Matheson Elizabeth Henry	Kenneth Matheson Elizabeth Henry 💍 1877/2413	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	30 14	Crocca Crocca	10 months 1 year	at the house of Widery Growa	77/2390	Phuntery Father	16 October 1877	Rev James Duncan
31	19 October 1877	William Spuintes Elegia Granfield	William Spinks Eliza Granfield 💍 1877/96	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	21 years 14 years	Palmerston N Palmerston N	2 years 2 years	Registrar Office	77/2386	Sarah Granfield Sister	19 October 1877	Registrar Palmerston North
32	31 October 1877	Edwin Fredrick Jones Finnis Emma Aldridge	Edwin Frederick Jones Finnis Emma Aldridge 💍 1877/97	Bachelor Widow	Carpenter	48 years 35 years	Palmerston North Palmerston North	18 months 3 years	Registrars Office Palmerston North	77/2387		31 October 1877	Registrar Palmerston North
33	November 1877	George Hartley Elizabeth Perrier	George Hartley Elizabeth Perrier 💍 1877/3130	Bachelor Spinster	Bulloch Driver	19 years 20 years	Palmerston north Palmerston north	1 year 2 years	at house of Rev S.Y. Hammond	77/2468	George Hartley Father no person to consent	November 1877	Rev S.Y. Hammond Palmerston North
34	November 1877	Petter Anderson Annie alderson	Petter Anderson Annie Alderson 💍 1877/2399	Bachelor Spinster	Sawyer	31 years 23 years	Palmerston Palmerston	4 years 3 years	Registrar Office	77/2388		November 1877	Registrar Palmerston N
35	December 1877	Cuthbert Henry Milford Daisy Elise Weld	Cuthbert Henry Meitford Daisy Elsee Weld 💍 1877/3138	Bachelor Widow	Bank Agent	22 years 28 years	Palmerston N Foxton	2 months 3 days	Anglican Church Palmerston N Foxton	77/3025		1 December 1877	Rev F. Sheriff Foxton
36	3 December 1877	Edmund Clement Bellow Maryann Carman	Edmund Clement Collard Mary Ann Carman 💍 1877/2410	Bachelor Spinster	Contractor	26 years 24 years	Palmerston north Palmerston North	2 years 6 months	Registrar Office	77/2389		3 December 1877	Registrar Palmerston North
37	19 December 1877	Laurence Samieson Annie Phend	Laurence Jameson Annie Reed 💍 1877/2415	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	26 years 21 years	Palmerston North Palmerston north	2 weeks 1 week	House occupied by S. Jamaia Palmerston	77/2392		19 December 1877	Rev S.Y. Hammond Palmerston N

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).