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 605

District of Kumara Quarter ending 31 March 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
24	3 January 1878	Moses Barrowman Elizabeth Morris Ward	Moses Barrowman Elizabeth Morris Ward 💍 1878/462	Bachelor Spinster	Miner None	27 19	Dunedin Flat Kumara	16 months 7 days	At residence of Bridegroom, Dunedin Flat	78/419	Emma Self, Mother	3 January 1878	Rev. W. S. Harper
25	3 January 1878	Edwin Hendy Ellen Williams	Edwin Hendy Ellen Williams 💍 1878/463	Bachelor Widow	Miner None	35 34	Dunedin Flat Kumara	17 months 14 months	At residence of W. S. Harper, Kumara	78/420		3 January 1878	Rev. W. S. Harper
26	8 January 1878	John Love Margaret Frances Woodland	John Love Margaret Frances Woodland 💍 1878/465	Bachelor Widow	Butcher Dressmaker	26 23	Kumara Kumara	15 months 12 months	At the Office of Registrar, Kumara	78/422		8 January 1878	P. A. F. Birch, Registrar of Marriages
27	5 February 1878	Hugh Patrick McKeever Anne Brogan	Hugh Patrick McReeves Anne Brogen 💍 1878/443	Bachelor Spinster	Druggist None	33 23	Hokitika Kumara	6 years 14 days	St Patricks R.C. Church, Kumara	78/424		5 February 1878	Rev. Michael Mc. Caughy
28	7 February 1878	Thomas Maher Fanny McKeavy	Thomas Maher Hanny McAlery 💍 1878/444	Bachelor Spinster	Coach Driver Servant	29 22	Kumara Kumara	15 months 18 months	Catholic Church, Kumara	78/425		7 February 1878	Rev. Michael Mc. Caughy
29	3 March 1878	Michael Hartigan Eliza M. Garry	Michael Martigan Eliza McGarry 💍 1878/445	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter Servant	30 17	Kumara Kumara	1 year and 8 months 6 months	At the R. C. Church, Kumara	78/428	No person residing in Colony legally entitled to give consent	3 March 1878	Rev. Michael Mc. Caughy
30	5 March 1878	James Isdell Josephine Margaret Navy	James Isdell Josephine McKeevey 💍 1878/446	Bachelor Spinster	Hotelkeeper Barmaid	38 22	Dillman's Dillman's	18 months 6 months	At Residence of Rev. M. Mc. Caughy, Kumara	78/429		5 March 1878	Rev. M. Mc. Caughy

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).