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 332

District of Wellington Quarter ending 31 December 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
223	13 November 1877	Charles Painey Back Sarah King	Charles Grainey Sarah King 💍 1877/2401	Bach Spinster	Butcher	20 27	The Hutt The Hutt	18 months 27 years	Registrar's Office Wellington	81/2398	William Henry Painey Father	13 November 1877	Registrar of Marriages Wellington
224	17 November 1877	John Chance Back Eleanor Chales	John Chance Eleanor Chalis 💍 1877/2430	Bach Spinster	Brickmaker Servant	25 24	Wellington Wellington	25 yrs 24 yrs	House of Herd I Moir	81/2431		14 November 1877	Rev.d John Moir Pas
225	17 November 1877	William Morris Back Hannah Creedon	William Morris Hannah Creedon 💍 1877/2400	Bach Spinster	Labourer Servant	29 20	Wellington Wellington	about 8 years about 8 months	Registrar's Office Wellington	81/2399	no one in Colony	17 November 1877	Registrar of Marriages Wellington
226	19 November 1877	Henry James Thomas Edmond Naonin Haynes		Bach Spinster	Builder	25 21	Wellington Wellington	3 yrs 2 yrs	House of Jas More Edmonds	81/2946		19 November 1877	Rev.d P Paterson Pas
227	19 November 1877	David Shaw Annie Livingston	David Shaw Annie Livingstone 💍 1877/2934	Bach Spinster	A B	32 22	Wellington Wellington	2 weeks 3 years	St John's Church Willis Street	81/2945		19 November 1877	Rev.d P Paterson Pas
228	21 November 1877	Jesse Gamby Ellen Churchman Everest	Jesse Gambey Ellen Churchman Everest 💍 1877/2461	Bach Spinster	Manservant	30 20	Wellington The Hutt	2 years 5 years	St Marks Adelaide Road Wellington	81/2440	David Churchman Father	21 November 1877	Rev. K. Coffey by P

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).