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 0673

District of Kaiapoi Quarter ending 30 June 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
416	24 April 1878	John Read Mary More	John Ryan Mary Murphy 💍 1878/2619 John Devanny Mary Morris 💍 1878/3092 John Gray Mary Brown 💍 1879/419 John Coad Mary Ann Denby 💍 1878/467	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	31 25	Kaiapoi Island Kaiapoi Island	10 years 20 years	The Parish Church Kaiapoi			27 April 1878	Revd. B. W. Dudley, CofE
417	26 April 1878	Charles Fleuty Amelia Crane	Charles Fluerty Amelia Ann Crane 💍 1878/2045	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	22 22	Maori Pah Maori Bush	4 months 8 months	St Stephens Maori Pah	78/1984		26 April 1878	Revd. G. P. Mutu, CofE
418	10 May 1878	Saunders Hight Mary Jane Duffull	Saunders Hight Mary Jane Duffull 💍 1878/1192	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer Schoolmistress	24 19	Ohoka Ohoka	4 days 19 years	The Parish Church at Flaxton	78/1214	Richard Duffull, Father	10 May 1878	Revd. W. R. Jawick, CofE
419	3 June 1878	William Veitch Mary Wyllie	William Keith Mary Wyatt 💍 1878/8 William Smith Mary Ann Kane 💍 1878/205 William Smith Mary Bragg 💍 1878/1457	Bachelor Spinster	Farm Labourer	25 22	Kaiapoi Kaiapoi Island	3 years 20 years	The Wesleyan Chapel at Kaiapoi	78/1988		3 June 1878	Revd. Mr. Barmitage, Pres
420	12 June 1878	William Pink Esther Clarington	William Pink McCartney Esther Bennington 💍 1878/1188	Bachelor Spinster	Seaman Refresher	29 19	Raven Street, Kaiapoi Raven Street, Kaiapoi	16 months 6 years	The residence, Raven Street, Kaiapoi	78/1211	John Bennington, Father	13 June 1878	Revd. Mr. McGregor, Pres
421	15 June 1878	Francis Carter Ellen Feldwick	Francis Dudson Ellen Feldwick 💍 1878/1191	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	23 25	Grey Street, Kaiapoi Grey Street, Kaiapoi	20 months 9 months	Roman Catholic Chapel Kaiapoi	78/1213		15 June 1878	Revd. W. Binsfield, RC
422	19 June 1878	James Gibbs Stanton Betsey Maria Petrie	James Gibbs Stanton Betsy Stark Petrie 💍 1878/1190	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	22 17	Woodend Woodend	19 years 17 years	The residence, Woodend	78/1212	Robert Petrie, Father	19 June 1878	Revd. J. W. Leufield, Pres

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).