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 429

District of Wairau Quarter ending 31 December 1877 Registrar Cyrus Goulter

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	08 October 1877	William Newberry Susanna Eliza Foster	William Newberry Susannah Eliza Foster 💍 1877/2504	Bachelor Spinster	Farm Labourer Domestic Servant	24 18	Awatere Blenheim	4 years 2 years	Church of England	77/2506	Jas Foster, father of Susanna Eliza Foster	08 October 1877	Ven Arch Butt
32	22 November 1877	Richard Dipon Elizabeth Bruce	Richard Dixon Elizabeth Byrne 💍 1877/2501 Richard Bath Elizabeth Brown 💍 1878/797 Richard Cliff Elizabeth Sykes 💍 1878/3302 Richard Bates Elizabeth Campbell 💍 1877/622	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter Domestic Servant	29 21	Blenheim Blenheim	3 years 2 years	House of Rev M. Sauzeau	77/2504		22 November 1877	Rev. Wm Sauzeau
33	24 November 1877	Michael Casey Ellen Moran	Michael Casey Ellen Moran 💍 1877/2500	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	25 17	Blenheim Blenheim	18 years 16 years	North Catholic Church	77/2503	Elizabeth Diamond, Mother of Ellen Moran	24 November 1877	Rev. Wm Sauzeau
34	03 December 1877	Walter Horgrove Hester Gave		Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter Dressmaker	27 25	Blenheim Blenheim	14 years 2 years	English Church	77/2504		03 December 1877	Ven Arch Butt
35	03 December 1877	Jeremiah O'Sullivan Margaret Reardon	Jeremiah OSullivan Margaret Reardon 💍 1877/2503	Bachelor Spinster	Shoemaker	21 23	Blenheim Blenheim	7 months 8 months	North Catholic Church	77/2505		03 December 1877	Rev. Wm Sauzeau
36	07 December 1877	Elijah Bythell Seena Milbourne		Widower Spinster	Builder Milliner	40 17	Blenheim Blenheim	13 years 6 months	House of H. Gee	77/2508	H. Peterson in Colony with authority to give consent	07 December 1877	Ven Arch Butt
37	11 December 1877	William Tapp Sarah Ann Parks	William Tapp Sarah Ann Parker 💍 1877/2507	Bachelor Spinster	Butcher	21 26	Renwick Town Lower Wairau	4 months 1 month	Church of England, Blenheim	77/2509		11 December 1877	Ven Arch Butt
38	15 December 1877	Walter Samuel Watson Elizabeth Joyce	Walter Samuel Watson Elizabeth Joyce 💍 1877/2498	Bachelor Spinster	Wheelwright Domestic Servant	26 24	Renwick Town Blenheim	10 years 5 years	House of Charlotte Joyce	77/2501		15 December 1877	Rev H. Sheriff

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).