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 188

District of Thames Quarter ending 31 December 1878

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
728	1st November 1877	Shellybald McGavin Sarah Kay	Archibald McGarvie Sarah Kay 💍 1877/2342	Bachelor Spinster	Miner Milliner	25 years 22 years	Waiotahi Waioitahi	8 years 4 years	In the dwelling house occupied in Thames Hodagg Waiotahi Creek Thames	YY/2334	November 1877	Rev. S. Hull
729	9th November 1877	Isaac Rhodes Booker Sarah Alexander	Isaac Rhodes Cooper Sarah Alexander 💍 1877/2333	Widower Spinster	NZ Militia -	56 years 28 years	Karawai Karawai	9 years 8 years	St Francis Roman Catholic Church Thames	YY/2326	November 1877	Rev. S. Whastagnay
730	17th November 1877	William Chappell Harriet Whitelande	William Chappell Harriet Whiteland 💍 1877/2338	Widower Widow	Miner Domestic	37 years 36 years	Waitongurina Thames	9 years 6 months	In the dwelling house occupied by Nelson Carlough Karaka Creek Thames	YY/2330	15th December 1877	Rev. S. Rumar
731	15th December 1877	James Don Walker Janet Patterson Gibson	James Dan Walker Jannet Patterson Gibson 💍 1877/2343	Bachelor Spinster	Miner -	23 years 21 years	Kararu Karaka	7 years 8 years	In the dwelling house occupied by William Gibson Karaka Hill Thames	YY/2335	15th December 1877	Rev. S. F. Neill
732	15th December 1877	Peter Magewell Emily Kirk	Peter Maxwell Emily Wirk 💍 1877/2351	Widower Widow	Carter Domestic	40 years 28 years	Thames Waiotahi	4 years 7 years	In the dwelling house occupied by John Marinek Waiotahi	YY/2336	15th December 1877	Rev. S. F. Neill
733	17th December 1877	Alfred William Aylett Emily Marston	Alfred William Aylett Emily Marston 💍 1877/2369	Bachelor Spinster	Miner -	23 years 24 years	Thames Thames	10 years 3 weeks	St. George's Church Creeks the Thames	YY/2339	17th December 1877	Rev. A. Lush
734	24th December 1877	Francis Frater Martha Porte	Francis Frater Martha Porte 💍 1877/2370	Bachelor Spinster	Mariner Domestic	23 years 22 years	Thames Thames	40 years 3 years	In the dwelling house occupied by Francis Frater Graham Street Thames	YY/2340	24th December 1877	Rev. A. Lush

These records have been automatically transcribed and must be verified using the page image (below)

100% Contrast

100% Brightness

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 1898. More registers will be added when the Archives NZ Wellington reading room re-opens in September 2025.

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).