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 1013

District of Invercargill Quarter ending 31 March 1877 Registrar A. C. Henderson

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
14	23 January 1877	Robert Stebenton Hannah Pay formerly Taylor	Robert Stevenson Hannah Pay 💍 1877/711	Widower Widow	Labourer	50 48	Invercargill Invercargill	12 years 10 years	House of Rev. H. Dean Invercargill	77/604		23 January 1877	Rev. H. J. Dean
15	23 January 1877	Richard Passed Jemima McIntosh	Richard Harred Jemima MacIntosh 💍 1877/712	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	32 21	Invercargill Invercargill	1 week 1 month	House of Rev. H. J. Dean	77/605		23 February 1877	Rev. H. J. Dean
16	28 February 1877	William Yates Barry Sutton Ada Elizabeth Kingswell	William Aretus Parry Sutton Ada Elisabeth Kingswell 💍 1877/780	Bachelor Spinster	Monger	38 19	Invercargill Invercargill	3 days 11 years	Church of England Invercargill	77/694	William B. Kingswell Father	28 February 1877	Rev. W. S. Tanner
17	28 February 1877	Charles William Brown Eliza Anne Palmer	Charles William Brown Eliza Annie Palmer 💍 1877/684	Bachelor Spinster	Accountant	30 29	Invercargill Invercargill	2 years 1 week	House of H. Reed Don Street	77/594		28 February 1877	Rev. D. A. Nichol
18	2 March 1877	Robert Taylor Charlotte Stewart	Robert Taylor Charlotte Stewart 💍 1877/692	Bachelor Spinster	Saddler	24 25	Invercargill Invercargill	16 years 14 years	House of John Stewart Invercargill	77/601		2 March 1877	Rev. A. H. Stobo
19	9 March 1877	David Shaw Mary Jane Rimbay	David Strang Mary Jane Ramsay 💍 1877/703 David Wilson Mary Jane Rooney 💍 1877/557	Bachelor Spinster	Manufacturer	26 19	Invercargill Charlestown	13 years 15 years	House of R. Bayday Charlestown	77/602		9 March 1877	Rev. A. H. Stobo
20	12 March 1877	George Charles Bhittolph Mary McIntosh	George Charles Buttolph Mary McIntosh 💍 1877/677	Bachelor Spinster	Butcher	31 21	Gore Invercargill	18 months 9 years	House of R. McIntosh Invercargill	77/591		12 March 1877	Rev. W. Stewart

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).