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 379

District of Hokitika Quarter ending Jul - Sep

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
61	1st July	George Smith Jane Dunlop	George Smith Jane Dunlop 💍 1867/8509	Bach Spinster	Miner	27 21	Waimea Hokitika	18 ms 12 ms	Presbyterian Church	1423		1 July	Rev John Gow
62	8th July	John Bergan Eliza Stapleton	John Bergan Eliza Stapleton 💍 1867/8452	Bach Spinster	Miner Servant	35 30	Kanieri Hokitika	2 yrs 1 yr	Wesleyan Church	1404		8 July	Rev W Cannell
63	13th July	Michael Smith Jane Carrington	Michael Smyth Jane Connington 💍 1867/8668	Bach Spinster	Miner	26 21	O'Donoghues Hokitika	1 yr 4 ms	Roman Catholic Church	1478		19 July	Rev S H Donogh
64	25th July	Antonio Arnerich Catherine Sewerack		Bach Widow	Miner	40 35	Hokitika Maciena	10 days 10 months	Roman Catholic Church	1479		25 July	Rev S H Donogh
65	27th July	John Francis Eliza Jefferson	John Francis Skipper Lizzie Jefferson 💍 1867/8584	Bach Widow	Miner	34	Ten Mile Beach do	2 yrs 6 mo	Church of England	1449		29 July	Ten Arch - Harper
66	29 July	John Woon Frances Elizabeth Salamba	John Woon Francis Elizabeth Selmin 💍 1867/8512	Bach Spinster	Mariner	32 26	Hokitika do	2 yrs 3 ms	Private Residence	1424		29 July	Rev John Gow
67	31st July	Jean Legouar Fanny Grogan		Bach Spinster	Publican	24 24	Waimea do	1 yr do	Hopeful Store			31 July	Rev J D Larkin
68	15th Aug	Charles Free Mary Ann Loughton	Charles Free Mary Ann Longton 💍 1867/8440	Bach Spin	Carter	27 19	Hokitika Ross	2 yrs do	Church of England Ross	1450	James Loughton Father	15 Aug	Rev J Brownsworth

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

100% Contrast

100% Brightness

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).