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 323

District of Wellington Quarter ending 30 September 1877 Registrar H. 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
179	05 September 1877	James Wall Sarah Carroll formerly Colton	James Wall Sarah Carroll 💍 1877/1656 James Mason Mary Ann Carroll 💍 1877/816	Bachelor Widow	Brick Labourer Cook	22 25	Wellington Do	8 months	Swinton House of Herl John Moir Holcombe Street - Wellington	77/1608		05 September	Rev. John Moir
180	06 September 1877	Arthur Winton Mary Eliza Lewis Linnell	Arthur Winton Brown Mary Eliza Lewis Linnell 💍 1877/1648	Bachelor Spinster	Groom	20 18	Wellington Do	12 yrs 18 yrs	St Peters Willis Street - Wellington	77/1605	A Brown, Father of bride, in Colony	06 September	Rev. Archdeacon Stock
181	07 September 1877	Herbert Johanson Mina Johnson	Reinert Johanson Mina Johnsen 💍 1877/1654	Bachelor Spinster	Mariner	24 25	Wellington Do	3 days Do	House of Kennet Johanson, Hamington Street - Wellington	77/1606		07 September	Rev. John Moir
182	08 September 1877	Thomas William Coulson Esther Thompson Horsley	Thomas William Coulson Esther Thomson Horsley 💍 1877/2156	Bachelor Spinster	Moulder Dressmaker	23 22	Wellington Do	9 months 9 months	House of James Dickenson Barker Street - Wellington	77/2122		08 September	Rev. H Dawnsbury
183	10 September 1877	Francis Taylor Janet Short formerly Tim	Francis Taylor Janet Short 💍 1877/2157	Widower Widow	Licensed Victualler	51 37	Johnsonville Do	4 years Many yrs	Wesleyan Church Manners Street - Wellington	77/2123		10 September	Rev. Alex Kent
184	10 September 1877	William Archibald Mason Elizabeth Hill	William Archibald Mason Elizabeth Hill 💍 1877/1721	Bachelor Spinster	Compositor	25 19	Wellington Do	3 yrs 19 yrs	House of John Hill Mayoubank Street - Wellington	77/1609	Father	10 September	Rev. Robertson

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).