Intentions to Marry, 1872

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840384, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Page 133

District of Drury 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
179	19 July 1872	Joseph Wootton Alice Anderton	Joseph Wootten Alice Anderton 💍 1872/8930 Charles Wootton Ellen Anderton 💍 1872/6674	Widower Widow	Farmer	58 55	Bombay S.A.H. Bombay Settl	8 yrs 2 years	In the dwelly House of Josh Wootton Bombay Settl	72/1689		22 July 1872	Rev Joseph Bates
180	19 July 1872	Thomas White Catherine Skally	Thomas Fairley Catherine Wallace 💍 1872/5687 Thomas Wallis Catherine Crowley 💍 1872/4485 Thomas Hall Catherine Taylor 💍 1872/6878 Thomas Osmond Catherine Miller 💍 1872/7955	Bachelor Widow	Settler	29 40	Papakura Drury	9 yrs 10 yrs	In the Roman Catholic Chapel Drury			19 July 1872	Very Rev Jas McDonald
181	1 August 1872	David Muir Margaret Douglas	David Muir Margaret Douglas 💍 1872/4530	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	33 22	Pokeno Pokeno	3 days 2 years	In the dwelly House of Mr Alexandr Douglas Pokeno	91. 72/ 959.		1 Aug 1872	Rev Thomas Norrie
182	14 August 1872	William Douglas Margaret Ann Irwin	William Douglas Margaret Ann Irwin 💍 1872/4533	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	32 17	Waipipi Awitu	4 yrs 10 yrs	In the dwelly House of Mr John Irwin Awitu	m 72/ 960.	John Irwin father of the Minor	14 Aug 1872	Rev Thomas Norrie
183	22 August 1872	Diedrich Bartels Anna Adolph	Diedrich Bartels Anna Adolph 💍 1872/4536	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	33 19	Alexandra In Drury Patumohoe	3 days 8 years	In the dwelly House of Gustar Adolph Patumohoe	m. 72/ 962.	Gustar Adolph father of the Minor		Rev John Smith
184	26 Sept 1872	Charles Wootton Ellen Anderton	Charles Wootton Ellen Anderton 💍 1872/6674	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	29 21	Bombay Settl Bombay Settl	8 years 2 years	In the dwg House of Charles Wootton Bombay	72/1689		30 Septr 1872	Rev Joseph Bates

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).