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 606

District of Christchurch Quarter ending 30 June 1877

No	Date of Notice	Names and Surnames of Parties	BDM Match	Condition	Calling or Profession	Age	Dwelling Place	Length of Residence	Marriage Place	Folio	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
4512	27 April 1877	Henry Constantine Emma Noy	Henry Constantine Emma Noy 💍 1877/1126	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer Servant	34 32	Christchurch Christchurch	2 weeks 4 days	Mrs Holt	77/1023	27 April 1877	Rev. W. Morley
4513	28 April 1877	William Pitcairn [illegible]		Bachelor [illegible]	Labourer [illegible]	31 [illegible]	Cashmere [illegible]	2 years [illegible]	St Joseph's Geraldine	77/1032	28 April 1877	Rev. H. S. Earle
4514	30 April 1877	Charles Braddell James Sleeman		Bachelor Spinster	Accountant Servant	36 29	Christchurch Cashmere	3 days 4 years	Church	77/1234	30 April 1877	Rev. F. A. Hare
4515	2 May 1877	John Gallegher Annie Honoria Quinlan		Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Dressmaker	35 29	Methven Christchurch	3 years 3 months	St Patrick's Church	77/1354	2 May 1877	Rev. J. P. O'Hare
4516	3 May 1877	Paul Pelzer Julia Mulroyan		Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Servant	21 35	Opawa Christchurch	2 years 12 years	Registrar Office	77/1038	3 May 1877	Registrar of Marriages
4517	5 May 1877	John Duncan Mary Ann Beere	John Duncan Jane Lees 💍 1877/1544	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Machinist	36 24	Christchurch	3 days	in the Roman Catholic Church	77/1558	5 May 1877	Rev. R. Binsfield
4518	5 May 1877	James Johnston Alice Delargy	John Duncan Alice Delargy 💍 1877/1408	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer Servant	25 23	Christchurch Christchurch	4 days 10 days	in the Roman Catholic Church	77/1359	5 May 1877	Rev. R. Binsfield
4519	5 May 1877	Francis Seal Simpson Annie Fregnan	Francis Seal Simpson Mary Ann McLindon 💍 1877/2661	Bachelor Spinster	Ballastman Servant	36 25	Christchurch Christchurch	1 year 10 days	Christchurch	77/2645	5 May 1877	Rev. C. Fraser
4520	7 May 1877	Thomas Gaskill Mary Ann de Linden	Thomas Myhill Mary Ann Lang 💍 1878/578	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer [illegible]	25 19	Riccarton Christchurch	19 years 1 month	Scotch Church	77/2662	7 May 1877	Rev. C. Fraser
4521	7 May 1877	Reuben Carne Emma Allnutt		Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Servant	25 21	St. Albans Riccarton	2 years 2 years	Registrar's Office	77/1030	7 May 1877	Registrar of Marriages
4522	8 May 1877	Richard Molesworth Taylor Anya Lewellyn		Bachelor Spinster	Contractor Servant	42 22	Christchurch St. Albans	14 days 4 years	Lyttelton	77/1362	8 May 1877	Rev. F. C. Lloyd
		Laura Augusta Gray		Spinster		42	Lyttelton	1 week	Church

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).