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 380

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
69	13 Aug	Charles Flower Mary Denniston	Charles Flower Mary Ann Lister 💍 1867/8587	Bach Widow	Carrier	35 32	Hokitika Hokitika	1 mo 9 mo	Church of England	1450		13 Aug	Rev Arch Harper
70	13 Aug	John Phelan Catherine Farrell	James Robertson Catherine Farrell 💍 1867/5002	Bach Spin	Meltman	21 19	Hokitika Hokitika	12 mo 12 mo	Roman Catholic Church	1480	Margaret Stanton sister	13 Aug	Rev P. J. Dowling
71	27 Aug	William Anton Rosina Hatelright	William Anton Rosina Kate Taylor 💍 1867/4321	Bach Spin	Storekeeper	24 21	Kanieri Kanieri	2 yr 1 year	Diggers Arms Hotel	1425		27 Aug	Rev John Gow
72	27 Aug	Joseph Churcher Mary Ann Martin	Joseph Churches Mary Ann Rosetta Cecilia Gertrude Keogh 💍 1867/8590 Joseph Bowater Mary Ann Hills 💍 1867/6127	Bach Spin	Merchant	28 23	Hokitika Hokitika	2 yr 1 yr	All Saints Church			27 Aug	Rev Arch Harper
73	31 Aug	Christopher Conn Margaret McKeague	Cristopher Conn Margaret McCrovy 💍 1867/8515	Bach Spin	Miner	24 22	Hokitika Hokitika	2 yr 10 mo	Rainbow Hotel	1426		31 Aug	Rev John Gow
74	5 Sep	William Barclay Ann Winter	William Baulay Morris Anne Winter 💍 1867/8593	Bach Widow	Clerk	32 29	Hokitika Hokitika	2 yr 1 yr	All Saints Church	1452		5 Sep	Rev Arch Harper
75	5 Sep	William Kirkwood Ann O'Mara	William Kirkwood Anne O'Mara 💍 1867/8455 William Corboy Maria O'Mara 💍 1867/7297	Bach Spin	Cook	22 21	Hokitika Hokitika	2 year 7mo	Wesleyan Church	1405		5 Sep	Rev W. Cannell
76	6 Sep	John Ruddy Margaret Russell	John Huddy Margaret Murrell 💍 1867/8731 John Kennedy Margaret Watson 💍 1867/5449	Bach Spinster	Cook Cook	25 25	Hokitika Hokitika	2 years 5 mo	Registrar's Office Hokitika	1499		6 Sep	W McCully Registrar

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).