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 663

District of Ellesmere Quarter ending 30 September 1877 Registrar H. M. Lee

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
18 July 1877	Robert Hogg Martha Ruddock	Robert Hogg Martha Ruddock 💍 1877/1881	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	30 21	Leeston Leeston	9 years 3 years	at the house of Mr Thompson Mitchell near Leeston	77/1836		3 July 1877	Revd. S. W. Free of Leeston
19 July 1877	Melbourne Jesse Watkins Anne Victoria Litchfield	Melbourne Jesse Watkins Anne Victoria Litchfield 💍 1877/1852	Bachelor Spinster	Sadler	23 21	Leeston Christchurch	7 months 1 month	at the house of Mr F. W. Litchfield, Hereford Street	77/1490		6 July 1877	Revd. William Morley of Christchurch
20 July 1877	William Henry Breach Betsy Pearson	William Henry Breach Betsy Pearson 💍 1877/1882	Bachelor Spinster	Baker	25 17	Leeston Doyleston	10 months 1 year	at the house of Mr James Rickell at Doyleston	77/1837	Emma Rickell formerly Pearson mother	13 July 1877	Revd. S. W. Free of Leeston
21 August 1877	William Lewis Ellen Bowis	William Lewis Ellen Bowie 💍 1877/1883 William Lewis Mary Ann Williams 💍 1878/528	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	27 17	Leeston Lake Ellesmere	1 year 14 years	Presbyterian Manse Leeston	77/1838	Henrietta Bowis mother	3 August 1877	Revd. S. W. Free of Leeston
22 August 1877	Thomas Jenkins Beatrice Mary Littent	Thomas Jenkins Beatrice Mary Litten 💍 1877/1880	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	38 19	Southbridge Leeston	12 years 1 year	St John's Church of England Leeston	77/1835	Randal Pedley Littent father	31 August 1877	Revd. W. Harper of Southbridge

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).