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 145

District of Shortland 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
297	28 June 1872	John Biehn Sarah Ann Rogers	John Bickers Sarah Ann Rogers 💍 1872/4596	Bachelor Spinster	Sawyer Servant	26 24	Shortland Grahamstown	4 years 4 years	The dwelling house occupied by me Bennes Karaka Plains	921		7 July 1872	Rev. James Buller
298	1 July 1872	Samuel Goddard Lucy Arthur	Samuel Goddard Lucy Arthur 💍 1872/9158	Widower Widow	Miner Domestic	57 50	Grahamstown Paramai	5 years 2 years	The dwelling house occupied by Thomas James Shortland	981		8 July 1872	Rev. James Hill
299	22 July 1872	George William Sampson Jane Houston	George William Sampson Jane Houston 💍 1872/4698	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer Milliner	22 21	Grahamstown Opotanui	3 days 3 days	The office of the Registrar of marriages Shortland	1032		23 July 1872	[UNCLEAR] Park
300	8 July 1872	Joseph McBeth Annie McAuely		Bachelor Spinster	Miner Servant	28 24	Shortland Shortland	4 years 3 years	The Roman Catholic Chapel Shortland	1018	her father Nivardo	22 July 1872	Rev. Father Nivardo
301	13 July 1872	James Alfred Irwin Jane Harry	James Alfred James Jane Harry 💍 1872/9161	Bachelor Widow	Miner Storekeeper	33 33	Punga Flat Shortland	1 year 1 year	The dwelling house occupied by Mrs Jane Harry Pollen St Shortland	1034		23 July 1872	Rev. James Hill
302	13 July 1872	William Nott Mary Trandsmonth	William Mott Mary Wandsworth 💍 1872/5400 William Dore Mary Ann Smith 💍 1872/4260 William Paget Mary Johnson 💍 1872/8708 William Smythe Mary Grant 💍 1873/5279	Widower Widow	Carpenter Domestic	60 55	Shortland Karaka	2 1/2 years 2 1/2 years	St George's Church Thames	1261		1 August 1872	Rev. J. Lush
303	19 July 1872	Andw. George Atkins Rachel Spratt		Bachelor Widow	Accountant	40 39	Murphy's Hill Murphy's Hill	3 years 2 years	[UNCLEAR]	1045		24 July 1872	Rev. Jn. Smith
304	30 July 1872	Andrew Somervell Mary Margaret Delaney	Andrew Somervell Mary Margaret Ferney 💍 1872/4599	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	21 19	Grahamstown Karaka	3 years 3 years	The Wesleyan Chapel Shortland	999		5 August 1872	Rev. James Buller

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).