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 419

District of Picton Quarter ending 30 September 1877 Registrar James Alexander

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
150	18 July 1877	Richard Craff Mary Jane Rabone	Richard Gagg Mary Jane Rabone 💍 1877/1730	Bachelor Spinster	Butcher Servant	21 18	Picton Road Picton	12 years 5 years	Church of the Holy Trinity, Picton	77/1685	Samuel Rabone, Father	18 July 1877	Rev Arch Deacon Butt of Blenheim
151	1 August 1877	George Madge Jaylor Elizabeth Emma ODonell Parkes	George Madge Taylor Elizabeth Emma ODonnell Parkes 💍 1877/1733	Bachelor Spinster	Bushman	21 18	Luna Bay Luna Bay	1 year 1 year	At the Register Office, Picton	77/1688	John ODonell, Step Father	14 August 1877	James Alexander, Registrar Picton
152	25 August 1877	Julio Phillips Johanne Henricksen	Julio Phillips Johanne Henricksen 💍 1877/1734	Bachelor Widow	Boatman Servant	36 24	Picton Picton	12 years 3 Months	At the Register Office, Picton	77/1689		25 August 1877	James Alexander, Registrar Picton
153	5 September 1877	George Cleghorn Harriet Louisa Mossop	George Cleghorn Harriet Louisa Mossop 💍 1877/1731	Bachelor Spinster	Surgeon	27 19	Blenheim Picton	16 month 4 days	Church of the Holy Trinity Picton	77/1686	No person Resident in the Colony to give Consent	8 September 1877	Rev Arch Deacon Butt of Blenheim
154	17 September 1877	Charles Thompson Minnie Me Master	Charles Thompson Minnie McMaster 💍 1877/1742	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer Servant	27 19	Picton Road Picton	13 years 10 months	At the residence of the Rev C.J. Riddle	77/1690	James Me Master, Father	17 September 1877	Rev C.J. Riddle, Presbyterian Minister Picton
155	20 September 1877	George Richard Frederick Green Ellen Eliza Green		Bachelor Spinster	Surveyor	34 27	Picton Road Picton Road	5 years 2 1/2 years	at the Church of the Holy Trinity	77/1684		20 September 1877	Rev Arch Deacon Butt of Blenheim
156	25 September 1877	John Trengove Williams Mary Ann Browne	John Trengrove Williams Mary Ann Brown 💍 1877/2495	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	27 19	Picton Road Picton	13 years 18 years	at the Holy Trinity Picton	77/2498	Patrick Dunn, Step Father	25 September 1877	Rev Archdeacon Butt of Blenheim

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).