Intentions to Marry, 1869

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840381, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Page 413

District of Hokitika Quarter ending Oct - Dec

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
345	22 October 1869	William Butler Maria Rankin	William Buttler Maria Rankin 💍 1869/6867	Bachelor Widow	Engineer	29 28	Hokitika Hokitika	2 years 6 mos	All Saints Church	885		22 Oct	Rev. Arch
346	2 November 1869	Henry Mace Catharine Divers	Henry Mace Catherine Dixon 💍 1869/6873	Bachelor Spinster	manufacturer	32 18	Hokitika Hokitika	3 years 2 years	Church	887	John Divers, father of Catharine Divers	2 Nov	Rev. Mr. Bell
347	3 November 1869	James Crofifer Emma Moody	James Cropper Emma Moody 💍 1869/6876	Bachelor Spinster	Stone mason	38 20	Hokitika Hokitika	3 years 2 years	Church of England	888		3 Nov	Rev. Mr. Bell
348	3 November 1869	David Samuel Rowcliffe Jane Mary	David Samuel Rowcliffe Jane Mary Hannaford 💍 1869/6879	Widower Spinster	Miner	36 22	Kanieri Kanieri	2½ years 5 mos	All Saints Church	889		3 Nov	Rev. Mr. Bell
349	3 November 1869	George William Bignell Lucy Jackson	George William Bignell Lucy Jackson 💍 1869/7086	Bachelor Spinster	Mariner	25 21	Hokitika Hokitika	1 year 1 year	In the Registrars office	961		3 Nov	Registrar H
350	4 November 1869	Martin Walsh Catharine Heelan	Martin Walsh Catherine Keelan 💍 1869/7071	Bachelor Spinster	Butcher	32 21	Goldsborough Hokitika	4 years 1 month	Private Residence	955		4 Nov	Rev. S.A.M
351	4 November 1869	Joseph O'Brien Kate Riley	Joseph O'Brien Catherine Kiley 💍 1869/4025	Bachelor Spinster	Seaman Servant	24 21	Hokitika Hokitika	4 years 2 years	Roman Catholic Church	956		4 Nov	Rev. P.A.M
352	12 November 1869	David Wadeson Julia Kingwill	David Wadeson Julia Kingwell 💍 1869/6882	Bachelor Widow	Gardener	34 30	Hokitika Hokitika	5 years 1 year	Church of England	890		12 Nov	Rev. Mr. Bell
353	17 November 1869	John Droling Margaret Brenhaw	John Dowling Margaret Brennan 💍 1869/7074 John Craig Margaret Ryan 💍 1869/6753 John Bowie Margaret Black 💍 1869/8502 John Gallen Margaret Maron 💍 1869/4004	Bachelor Spinster	Hotelmonger	40 26	Hokitika Hokitika	6 mos 1 year	Roman Catholic Church	957		17 Nov	Rev. P.A.P

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).