Intentions to Marry, 1870

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840382, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Luke Howison at Archives NZ Wellington, November 15 2024

Page 427

District of Hokitika Quarter ending 31 December 1870

No	Date of Notice	Names and Surnames of Parties	BDM Match	Condition	Calling or Profession	Age	Dwelling Place	Length of Residence	Marriage Place	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
415	17 October 1870	William Francis Bach Ann Ross	William Francis Ann Ross 💍 1870/6969	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	32 25	Hokitika Hokitika	6 weeks 1 year	Church of England Hokitika	27 October 1870	Rev. Archd Harper
416	25 October 1870	Robert Somes Bach Mary Jane Stewart	Robert Brown Mary Jane Stewart 💍 1870/6858	Bachelor Spinster	Miner No Occupation	29 17	Hokitika Hokitika	3 days 10 days	In the office of Registrar at Hokitika		Fatherbert Dermott, Registrar
417	8 November 1870	Edward Hughes Isabella Rawkill	Edward Hughes Isabella Roskill 💍 1870/7056	Bachelor Widow	Storekeeper	39 40	Hokitika Hokitika	5 years 4 years	Wesleyan Parsonage Hokitika		Rev. M. Shaw
418	11 November 1870	Jacob Theodore Heaghand Wilhelmina Judd	Jacob Theodore Skogland Wilhelmina Judd 💍 1870/6960	Bachelor Spinster	Store Keeper No Occupation	26 29	Hokitika Hokitika	4 months 2 months	Church of England Hokitika.		Rev. H. Harper
419	15 November 1870	James Merritt Annie Sullivan	James Meritt Annie Sullivan 💍 1870/7035	Bachelor Spinster	Storekeeper Servant	32 22	Hokites - Waimea Hokitika	4 years 7 months	At Meyer's White House Hotel Weld Street Hokitika		Rev. P.A. Martin
420	18 November 1870	Thomas Griffith Cavell Sarah Eyes	Thomas Crisp Cavell Sarah Eyres 💍 1870/6963	Bachelor Spinster	Confectioner	30 26	Hokitika Hokitika	5 years 2 years	Church of England Hokitika		Rev. Archd Harper
421	21 November 1870	Charles John Halliday Mary Ann Swift	Charles John Halliday Mary Ann Swift 💍 1870/7041	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk in the Govt of Westland Revenue No Occupation	25 20	Hokitika Hokitika	One Week Two Weeks	Roman Catholic Presbytery Hokitika		Rev. P.A. Martin
422	21 November 1870	Andrew Peebles Grace Christina Anderson	Andrew Peebles Grace Christina Anderson 💍 1870/6927	Bachelor Spinster	Timber Merchant	28 25	Hokitika Hokitika	4 years 4 years	At the Private dwelling of Joseph Gibson Quay - Hokitika		Rev. Geo Cow
423	21 November 1870	Robert Flanagan Catherine Theresa Oneil	Robert Flanagan Catherine Theresa O'Neil 💍 1870/7038	Bachelor Spinster	Miner Dressmaker	28 22	Greenstone but residing in Hokitika for 3 days Hokitika	3 days 3 days	Roman Catholic Church Hokitika		Rev. P.A. Martin

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 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).