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 375

District of Waipawa Quarter ending 31 March 1877 Registrar William Rathbone

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
175	8 January 1877	Albert Woronop Mary Elizabeth	Albert Worsnop Mary Elizabeth Hentschke 💍 1877/340	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter Domestic	22 17	Waipawa Waipawa	2 years 2 years	In the house of James Kentochke at Waipawa	77/245	Henrietta Kentochke, mother	8 January 1877	Rev. Joseph White
176	16 January 1877	Patrick William Emma Alding	Patrick William Sullivan Emma Alding 💍 1877/374	Bachelor Spinster	Bootmaker Domestic	28 17	Te Aute Te Aute	14 years Gellouth	In the Church at Te Aute	77/246	Alding, mother	16 January 1877	Rev. Samuel Williams
177	22 January 1877	Thomas Dennis Elizabeth Susannah Virgo	Thomas Dennis McCoffrey Elizabeth Susannah Virgo 💍 1877/344	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Domestic	27 16	Te Aute Te Aute	Gellenth 2 years	In St Patricks Chapel at Waipawa	77/248	Lydia Tucker, mother	22 January 1877	Rev. Euloge Regnier
178	6 February 1877	Frederick Williams Elizabeth Firth	Frederick Williams Elizabeth Firth 💍 1877/339	Bachelor Spinster	Bushman Nil	23 19	Makaretu Reserve Makaretu Reserve	1 year 1 year	In the Methodist Free Church at Waipawa	77/244	Elija Firth, mother	6 February 1877	Rev. Joseph White
179	12 February 1877	John Carter Elizabeth Fitzgerald	John Carter Elizabeth Fitzgerald 💍 1877/343 Samuel McClean Baxter Elizabeth Fitzgerald 💍 1877/1501	Widower Widow	Labourer Domestic	34 24	Waipawa Waipawa	2 years Gellonth	In St Patricks Church at Waipawa	77/249		12 February 1877	Rev. Euloge Regnier
180	13 February 1877	Duncan Mundell Marion McLean	Duncan Mundell Marion MacLean 💍 1877/347	Bachelor Spinster	Publican Nil	27 17	Kaikora Kaikora	Gellenth 5 years	In the house of [illegible] McLean at Kaikora	77/257	Neil McLean, father	13 February 1877	Rev. Robert Fraser

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).