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 646

District of Lyttleton Quarter ending 30 June 1877 Registrar [illegible]

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
275	14 May 1877	Peter Couch Mary Sun	Peter Couch Mary Ann Frances Atkinson 💍 1877/1523	Bachelor Spinster	Stationer [illegible]	21 17	Lyttelton Lyttelton	2 yrs 17 yrs	The House of Mr. Joseph Atkinson Lyttelton	77/1449	Joseph Atkinson father	17 May 1877	Rev. William Lee
276	25 May 1877	Thomas James Proball Bathila Sarah Dinkler	Thomas James Probatt Sarah Tinklen 💍 1877/1414	Bachelor Spinster	Mariner [illegible]	26 28	Lyttelton Lyttelton	3 days 11 mos.	Holy Trinity Church Lyttelton	77/1363	[illegible]	25 May 1877	Rev. H.C. Lloyd
277	15 June 1877	Richard Craft Bulkley Janet Wilson	Richard Crofts Buckley Janet Wilson 💍 1877/1524	Widower Spinster	Druggist [illegible]	31 24	Lyttelton Lyttelton	10 mos. 6 mos.	House Lyttelton	77/1450	[illegible]	15 June 1877	Rev. William Lee
278	18 June 1877	James Grubb Betsey McDonald	James Grubb Betsy McDonald 💍 1877/2134	Bachelor Spinster	Shipwright Domestic	24 22	Lyttelton Lyttelton	3 years 6 mos.	House M'John Grubb Lyttelton	77/2099	[illegible]	18 June 1877	Rev. James Hill
279	22 June 1877	Albert Hawken Marianne Jones	Albert Hawken Marianne Jones 💍 1877/2142	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer Teacher of Music	24 27	Governors Bay Governors Bay	3 days 3 days	House of Rev. James Hill Lyttelton	77/2100	[illegible]	22 June 1877	Rev. James Hill
280	25 June 1877	Walter Kitson Lucy Hirtzel	Walter Kitson Lucy Hirtzel Marshman 💍 1877/1887	Widower Spinster	Inspector of Survey [illegible]	42 24	Sumner Sumner	3 days 3 years	Church of England Sumner	77/1819	[illegible]	25 June 1877	Rev. Charles John Merton
281	26 June 1877	Sydney Albert Griffiths Marian Harriet Bull	Sydney Albert Griffiths Mary Ann Harriett Bull 💍 1877/1889	Bachelor Spinster	Seaman [illegible]	23 [illegible]	Lyttelton Lyttelton	5 years 5 years	Holy Trinity Church Lyttelton	77/1821	Jane Anderson Mother	26 June 1877	Rev. John Townsend

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).