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 0308

District of Wellington 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	Consent	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
86	28 April 1877	John Irvine Elizabeth Graham	John Irvine Elizabeth Graham 💍 1877/957	Widower Spinster	Gunsmith Servant	29 30	Wellington do	3 mths 10 days 10 days	Registrar's Office Wellington	84/55		28 April 1877	Registrar Wellington
87	14 May 1877	Charles Johnson Emma Lister	Charles Johnson Arthur Emma Lister 💍 1877/929	Bachelor Spinster	Joiner Dressmaker	22 22	Wellington do	4 days	Wesleyan Church Manners Street Wellington	84/42		14 May 1877	Revd. A. Reid
88	1 May 1877	Alexander Sample Kate Ellen Bragg	Alexander Sample Kate Ellen Bragg 💍 1877/1373	Bachelor Spinster	Draper Seamstress	29 19	Wellington do	19 yrs	House of Mary Bragg Courtney Place Wellington	[illegible]		14 May 1877	Revd. J. Patterson
89	7 May 1877	Charles Collis the younger Frances Coppard	Charles Collis Junior Frances Coppard 💍 1877/953	Widower Spinster	Farmer	36 24	Maimaiomala do	12 mths	House of Robert Wiley Maimaiomala			7 May 1877	Revd. G. Thomas.
90	3 May 1877	George Henry Baylis Clara Emma H. Chappell	George Henry Baylis Clara Emma McMillan Chappell 💍 1877/931	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter do	29 20	Wellington do	20 yrs	House of Henry Chappell Tasman Street	84/49	Henry Chappell Father	3 May 1877	Revd. A. Reid
91	2 May 1877	John William Murfitt Helen Bishop	John William Minifie Helen Bishop 💍 1877/930	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk	26 19	Wellington Manners Street Wellington	19 yrs	Wesleyan Church Colony	84/48		2 May 1877	Revd. A. Reid
92	2 May 1877	William Henry Jones Sarah Jones	William Henry Jones Sarah Jane Longley 💍 1877/1370	Bachelor Spinster	Plumber Servant	27 23	Wellington do	12 mths	House of Edward Layblow Quay Wellington	84/96		2 May 1877	Revd. Alex Reid

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).