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 322

District of Wellington Quarter ending 30 September 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
173	20 August 1877	August Frederick Bull Jessie Hall	Frederick Bull Jessie Hall Sheath 💍 1877/1651	Bachelor Spinster	Civilian	34 20	Wellington Do	3 years 12 years	St Pauls	77/1616	Abraham Syrettball, Heath, Father	20 August	Rev. Archdeacon Stock, boff
174	23 August 1877	August James Murphy Louisa Gibson	James Murphy Louisa Gibson 💍 1877/1686	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	34 24	Wellington Do	3 months 3 months	Registrar's Office, Wellington	77/1617		24 August	Registrar of Marriages, Wellington
175	25 August 1877	August Henry Peterssen Anna Maria Hansen		Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter Servant	27 17	Wellington Do	18 months 3 years	House of the Revd Lars I. Paterson, The Christianseu Terrace, Wellington	77/1619	Lars I. Paterson, The Father	25 August	Revd James Paterson, Pre
176	28 August 1877	August John Barton Isabella Love	John Barton Isabella Tone 💍 1877/2090	Bachelor Spinster	Civil Engineer	27 23	Wellington The Hutt	3 weeks 5 days	Church of England, Upper Hutt	77/2031		28 August	Rev. C.H.S. Nicholls, boff
177	30 August 1877	August Robert Wilson Harriet Marriott	Robert Wilson Harriet Marriot 💍 1877/1655	Bachelor Spinster	Butcher	27 21	Wellington Do	2 years 5 years	House of Revd John Moir Woolcombe, Street, Wellington	77/1608		30 August	Rev. John Moir, Pre
178	4 September 1877	September David Sutherland Ellen Ross	David M Sutherland Ellen Ross 💍 1877/1722	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	23 24	Lyell's Bay Wellington	23 years 4 years	House of Alex Sutherland, Lyell's Bay	77/1618		4 September	Rev. J. Paterson, Pre

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).