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 319

District of Wellington Quarter ending 30 September 1877 Registrar A. C. 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
156	06 August 1877	Frederick Mown Sarah Elizabeth Russell	Adolph Frederick Brown Sarah Elizabeth Russell 💍 1877/1652	Bachelor Spinster	Publican	21 21	Wellington The Hutt	2 1/2 yrs 2 1/2 yrs	House of Mrs Martha Russell	77/1604		08 August	Rev. W. H. Thomas
157	06 August 1877	James Henry Bellamy Emily Jessie Johns	James Henry Bettany Emily Jessie Johns 💍 1877/1659	Bachelor Spinster	Fellmonger	23 24	of Kelon batal present of Wellington Wellington	4 days 16 yrs	House of F. G. Johns Imakori Road Wellington	77/1610		08 August	Rev. J. Dumbleton
158	07 August 1877	Charles Thomas Samson Sarah Jane Lemmington	Charles Thomas Sainson Sarah Jane Semmington 💍 1877/2155	Bachelor Spinster	Insmith	21 19	Wellington Do	3 yrs 19 yrs	House of Alex Need. The Terrace		Alex Lemmington Mother	07 August	Rev. Alex. Reed
159	07 August 1877	Andrew Laing Margaret Duncan	Andrew Laing Margaret Duncan 💍 1877/2176	Bachelor Spinster	Carter	24 24	Wellington Do	6 days 6 days	House of Mr C. Hogg Muzuee Street- Wellington	77/2143		07 August	Rev. C. S. Hogg
160	07 August 1877	George Welling Jessie Shater	George Welling Jessie Shotter 💍 1877/1720	Bachelor Spinster	Sawyer	23 21	Makara Leo	3 yrs 2 1/2 yrs	Church of England Makara	77/1616		07 August	Rev. W. Ballachey

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).