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 150

District of Shortland 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
321	1 October 1872	Solomon Mill Shallback Frances Sarah Adeane	Solomon Mill Frances Sarah Adeana 💍 1872/8426	Bachelor Spinster	Miner Servant	27 18	Grahamstown Grahamstown	18 months 4 years	The dwelling house occupied by Solomon Mill Shallback	72/2288	Shallback [UNCLEAR] Adeane, Father	1 October 1872	Rev. James Buller
322	2 October 1872	Thomas Hales Jane Hales	Thomas Bach Jane Hales 💍 1872/8429	Bachelor Spinster	Chemist	26 21	Auckland Grahamstown	1 year 2 years	Wesleyan Chapel Grahamstown	72/2289	[UNCLEAR], the Mother	2 October 1872	Rev. James Buller
323	10 October 1872	John Pollock Ann Oatridge	John Pollock Ann Oatridge 💍 1873/9451	Bachelor Widow	Restaurant keeper Milliner	40 40	Grahamstown Grahamstown	25 years 4 years	The dwelling house occupied by James Hall	73/576		24 October 1872	Rev. James Hill
324	11 October 1872	William Henry Facey Mary Rattray	William Henry Jacobs Mary Rattray 💍 1872/5735	Bachelor Spinster	Bootmaker	28 18	Grahamstown Grahamstown	4 years 18 months	The dwelling house occupied by Mr. Stuart Rattray	72/1374	The Mother	14 October 1872	Rev. David Bruce
325	11 October 1872	James Hoperoft Emily Vidaloux	James Hopcroft Emily Vialou 💍 1872/8825	Bachelor Spinster	Journalist	31 21	Shortland Panmure	4 years 2 years	St. Matthews' Church Auckland Panmure			24 October 1872	Rev. Charles Gould
326	14 October 1872	Hjalmar Kenn Minia Russell		Bachelor Spinster	[UNCLEAR] Domestic	25 24	Shortland [UNCLEAR]	5 years 4 months	The dwelling house occupied by [UNCLEAR]	72/2290		28 October 1872	Rev. James Buller
327	15 October 1872	Patrick Mahoney Mary Ellen Halley	Patrick Mahoney Mary Ellen Halley 💍 1872/8264	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	24 17	Grahamstown Grahamstown	5 years 1 year	Roman Catholic Chapel Shortland	M/72/234	The Mother	1 October 1872	Rev. John Vicars
328	17 October 1872	Cornelius Looney Helen Kenhane		Bachelor Spinster	Miner Domestic	29 27	Grahamstown Grahamstown	4 years 5 years	The Roman Catholic Chapel Shortland	M/72/235	Rev. Father Wild	17 October 1872	Rev. John Vicars

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).