Intentions to Marry, 1867

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840379, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Page 376

District of Hokitika Quarter ending Apr - Jun

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
45	18 May	William Moore Anna Maria Huxon	William Moore Neil Anna Maria Quinn 💍 1867/8635 William Joyce Anna Wace Joyce 💍 1867/8176	Bach Spin	Comedian	29 21	Hokitika Hokitika	3 mo 3 mo	Roman Catholic Church	1466		Rev. J. D. Larkins
46	20 May	William Jerrom Pollard Caroline Bussell		Bach Widow	Carpenter	30 29	Hokitika Hokitika	3 mo 3 mo	English Church	1467	20 May	Rev. Robt. H. Harper
47	25 May	William Anderson Jane Hutchinson	William Anderson Jane Hutchinson 💍 1867/8494	Bach Spin	Miner	32 30	Hokitika Hokitika	30 mys 4 mo	Presbyterian Church	1418	25 May	Rev. J. Gow
48	25 May	Laurie Oran Elizabeth Harmer		Bach Spin	Overseer	33 31	Hokitika Hokitika	20 mo 2 mo	Presbyterian Church	1419	25 May	Rev. J. Gow
49	8 May	James Gorman Mary Larry	James Gorman Mary Corry 💍 1867/10240	Bach Spin	Miner	25 21	Ross Ross	2 yr 5 mo	Ross	2018	23 May	Rev. J. D. Larkins
50	5 June	William Raby Eliza Doyle	William Legg Elizabeth Doyle 💍 1867/5185	Bach Spin	Miner Hotel Keeper	25 21	Kanierau, West Coast Stafford, West Coast	9 mo 5 mo	Stafford, West Coast		5 June	Rev. J. D. Larkins
51	7 June	John Harrington Bridget Merton	Henry Harrington Bridget Martin 💍 1867/8623	Bach Spinster	Miner House Servant	27 25	Hokitika Hokitika	7 days 2 yrs	Roman Catholic Church		7 June	Rev. Stephen Hallum
52	25 May	James Cram Martha Josephine Brettell Proctor	James Craw Martha Magdalene Dorothea Brocker 💍 1867/8500	Bach Spinster	Miner	38 28	Hokitika do	1 Month 3 month	Private House	1420	25 May	Rev. John Gow

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

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Attribution: This image was digitised by Archives NZ Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga and is republished here under CC BY. It has been cropped and rotated for convenience.

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 1894. More registers will be added as the project continues.

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).