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 592

District of Christchurch Quarter ending 31 March 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	Consent	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
4375	9 January 1877	Charles Kerr Maria Amelia Avery	Charles Kerr Maria Amelia Avery 💍 1877/491	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	36 23	Christchurch Christchurch	8 days 8 days	In the house of Rev. I. Eleuther	77/394		9 January 1877	Rev. I. Eleuther
4376	9 January 1877	Edward John Martin Louisa Elira Drivey	Edward John Martin Louisa Eliza Viney 💍 1877/785	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk Servant	35 24	Christchurch Christchurch	5 years 5 years	St. Michael's Church	77/680		9 January 1877	Rev. E. S. Penny
4377	11 January 1877	John Shean Maria Fee	John Hern Maria Fee 💍 1877/485	Bachelor Spinster	Smith	26 24	Christchurch Riccarton	3 years 10 years	Wesleyan Chapel	77/391		11 January 1877	Rev. I. Crump
4378	12 January 1877	John Steele Guthrie Catherine Mary Reyndts	John Steele Guthrie Catherine Mary Reynolds 💍 1877/503	Bachelor Widow	Journalist	36 26	Christchurch Christchurch	13 years 2 years	St. Luke's Church	77/402		12 January 1877	Rev. E. A. Lingard
4379	12 January 1877	James Irvin Ellen Hopkins	James Irvine Ellen Hopkins 💍 1877/784	Bachelor Spinster	Surveyor Servant	36 23	Christchurch Christchurch	6 years 4 years	St. Michael's Church	77/679		12 January 1877	Rev. E. S. Penny
4380	12 January 1877	Federick Joseph King Rose Anne Tepperell	Frederick Joseph King Rose Anne Pepperell 💍 1877/455	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	21 21	Christchurch Templeton	18 years 15 months	In the house of Mr. Pope	77/361		12 January 1877	Rev. J. Berry
4381	12 January 1877	Simeon Cundy Louisa Richards Warren	Simeon Cundy Louisa Richards Warren 💍 1877/506	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter Dressmaker	25 18	Christchurch Christchurch	13 months 4 years	Registry Office	77/414	Mary Catherine Wacker, Mother	12 January 1877	J. Parkinson
4382	13 January 1877	John Moses Riding Marion Leach	John Moses Riding Marian Luck 💍 1877/1468	Bachelor Spinster	Blacksmith Servant	25 22	Christchurch Christchurch	6 months 3 years	In the house of Rev. Crees	77/394		13 January 1877	Rev. C. Crees
4383	15 January 1877	Charles Coombs Marion Emma Mutton	Charles Coombs Marion Emma Morton 💍 1877/513	Widower Spinster	Merchant	31 21	Christchurch Christchurch	18 years 12 years	In the house	77/421		15 January 1877	Very Rev. Dean Jacobs
4384	15 January 1877	Walter Thomas Matilda Sarah Restell	Walter Thomas Matilda Sarah Restall 💍 1877/786	Bachelor Spinster	Medical Practitioner	28 23	Christchurch Christchurch	4 days 18 years	St. Michael's Church	77/681		15 January 1877	Rev. E. S. Penny
4385	16 January 1877	John Carter Jane Withers	John Carter Jane Withell 💍 1877/478	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	23 23	Riccarton Riccarton	14 years 8 years	St. Anne's Church	77/360		16 January 1877	Rev. F. A. Hare

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).