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 301

District of Wellington Quarter ending 31 March 1877 Registrar A. H. Wilmer

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
31	19 February 1877	John Russell Sarah Elizabeth Weslow	John Russell Sarah Elizabeth Weston 💍 1877/308	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	26 21	Stokes Valley Wellington	3 years 2 years	St James's Hutt	77/213		13 February 1877	Rev. Thos. Yacouch
32	14 February 1877	George Rawson Coulson Ellen Jupp	George Rawson Coulson Ellen Jupp 💍 1877/282	Bachelor Spinster	Grocer	21 20	Wellington do	3 years 2 years	Wesleyan Church, Manners St Wellington	77/187	Stephen Mitchell Guardian	14 February 1877	Reve Alex Reed
33	16 February 1877	Christopher Taylor Mary Ann Hunk	Christopher Taylor Mary Ann Hunt 💍 1877/306	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	34 23	Wellington do	4 years do	House of Mrs Blake, Biddle Street Wellington	77/211		16 February 1877	Rev. H. B. Redstone
34	17 February 1877	Arthur Church Ann Jane Davies	Arthur Chuck Ann Jane Davis 💍 1877/317	Bachelor Spinster	Sadler	21 19	Wellington do	4 years 19 years	House of Rev. W. M. Kirk, James Davies, The Terrace Wellington	77/221		17 February 1877	Rev. W. H. West
35	19 February 1877	James Griffiths Janet Jane Tomkins	James Griffiths Jannet Pearce Timkins 💍 1877/941	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Cook	23 23	Waimetu do	2 weeks 1 month	Cathedral of St Pauls, Mulgrave Street Wellington	77/186		19 February 1877	Revd B. W. Harvey
36	20 February 1877	Thomas Gole Laura Gibbons	Thomas Gole Laura Gibbons 💍 1877/294	Bachelor Spinster	Solicitor	31 26	at present in Wellington Wellington	5 days 1 day	St Mark's, Adelaide Road Wellington	77/198		20 February 1877	Revd R. Coffey
37	20 February 1877	James Moran Adelaide Anderson	James Moran Adelaide Anderson 💍 1877/327	Bachelor Spinster	Boiler Maker General Servant	23 22	Wellington do	23 years 22 years	House of Revd I. Moor, Woolcombe Street Wellington	77/208		20 February 1877	Revd I. Moor
38	26 February 1877	William Avery Sarah Jane Vincent	William Avery Sarah Jane Vincent 💍 1877/328	Bachelor Spinster	Nuttion Domestic Servant	19 21	at present at Wellington Wellington	1 month 3 years	House of Revd Wm Moor, Woolcombe Street Wellington	77/209	George Avery, father	26 February 1877	Rev John Moor
39	27 February 1877	George Hay Ellen Susan Wheeler	George Ray Ellen Susan Wheeler 💍 1877/295	Bachelor Spinster	Plumber Domestic Servant	28 20	Wellington do	About 3 years do	St Mark's Adelaide Wellington	77/199		27 February 1877	Revd R. Coffey

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).