Intentions to Marry, 1864

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840376, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Page 129

District of New Plymouth Quarter ending 30 September 1864 Registrar Samuel Popham King

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
229	5 July 1864	John Harris Fluix Ford Louisa Johnson	John Harris Fliny Ford Louisa Johnson 💍 1864/9171	Bachelor Spinster	Saddler Daughter of John Johnson	24 19	New Plymouth New Plymouth	12 years 19 years	The Wesleyan Methodist Chapel	64/402	John Johnson, Father	5 July 1864	Rev. Alexander Reid
230	11 July 1864	John Ernest Provis Louisa Matilda Skackson	John Ernest Provis Louisa Matilda Schackson 💍 1864/9173	Bachelor Spinster	Warehouseman Daughter of Wm. Skackson	27 21	New Plymouth New Plymouth	1 year 20 years	House of Edward Lang, Courterary Street	64/403		11 July 1864	Rev. Alexander Reid
231	18 July 1864	John Hardgrave Sarah Ann Hunt	John Hardgrave Sarah Ann Hunt 💍 1864/9065	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer Sister of Henry Hunt	30 21	New Plymouth New Plymouth	3 years 21 years	House of John Hardgrave, Devon Street	64/363		18 July 1864	Rev. John Whiteley
232	20 July 1864	Joseph Batteson Harriet Turner	Joseph Batteson Harriet Turner 💍 1864/9085	Widower Spinster	Labourer Daughter of Chas. John Turner	33 24	New Plymouth New Plymouth	3 years over 1 year	House of Fred Stockman, Leach Street	64/370		20 July 1864	Rev. Robert Ward
233	26 July 1864	Henry Taylor Harriet Lavinia Spracklan	Henry Taylor Harriett Lavinia Spracklan 💍 1864/9176	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	32 32	New Plymouth New Plymouth	14 years 5 months	House of Henry Taylor, Devon Street	64/404		26 July 1864	Rev. Alexander 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).