Intentions to Marry, 1878

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840390, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Luke at Archives NZ Wellington, March 5 2025

Page 603

District of Grey Quarter ending 18 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	Consent	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
41	25 November 1878	Samuel Manson Amelia Jane Kettle	Samuel Manson Amelia Jane Kettle 💍 1878/2765	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter None	30 years 22 years	Kaiata near Greymouth Tainui Street Greymouth	3 years 6 years	Church of England, Greymouth	78/1280		25 November 1878	Revd G T N Watkins, CofE
42	28 November 1878	Robert Bouck Pauline Peyling	Robert Boak McPhun Pauline Reyling 💍 1878/2764	Widower Spinster	Dealer None	40 years 19	Greymouth Greymouth	6 years 10 years	Private dwelling House of George Frederick Peyling, Albert Street, Greymouth	78/1280	George Frederick Peyling, Father	28 November 1878	Geo. J. R. Watkins, CofE
43	30 November 1878	Edward Noble Jane Dundas	Edward Noble Jane Dundas 💍 1878/3238	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer None	33 years 27 years	Mile North Beach Greymouth	10 years 4 days	Registrar's Office, Greymouth	78/1329		30 November 1878	Frederick John Dakins Elmers, Deputy Registrar
44	14 December 1878	John Smith Rose Quinn	John Smith Rose Quinn 💍 1878/2754	Bachelor Spinster	Contractor None	31 years 25 years	Greymouth Greymouth	2 weeks 2 months	Roman Catholic Church, Greymouth	78/2495		14 December 1878	Rev. W. John Aloysius Euchre, RC
45	18 December 1878	David Jellie Ellen Harrison		Bachelor Spinster	Farmer None	34 years 18 years	Greymouth Greymouth	4 days 4 days	Church of England, Greymouth		Jane Harrison, December 18, Mother	18 December 1878	Geo. J. R. Watkins, CofE

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).