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 151

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
329	3 October 1872	Alfred Wilkinson Sampson Margareth Lecinus		Bachelor Spinster	Shipwright	28 27	Graitamtown Grahamstown	2 years 2 years	The Roman Catholic Chapel	71/2236	Edward Lecinus, father	5 October 1872	John Sivardo
330	7 October 1872	Samual Woods Mary Burke	Edward Woods Mary Burke 💍 1872/8273	Bachelor Spinster	Baker	27 21	Shortland Shortland	4 years 3 years	The Roman Catholic Chapel Shortland	71/2237		9 October 1872	John Sivardo
331	8 November 1872	William Penny Jesse Inglis	William Penney Jessie Inglis 💍 1872/9215	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	29 24	Grahamstown Grahamstown	5 years 3 years	The dwelling house occupied by Mr Benjamin Shandlor Albert St Grahamstown	72/2262		11 November 1872	Rev. C. O. Butland
332	15 November 1872	John Gribble Priscilla Rowe	John Gribble Priscilla Rowe 💍 1872/8435	Bachelor Spinster	Draper	22 21	Shortland Moanataiari	3 years 10 years	The dwelling house occupied by Mr William Rowe Moanataiari	72/2291		18 November 1872	Rev. James Buller
333	13 November 1872	Richard Shepherd Rose Ann Hood	Richard Shepherd Rose Ann Wood 💍 1872/9173	Bachelor Spinster	Prisoner	32 22	Grahamstown Grahamstown	2 years 18 months	The dwelling house occupied by Mr Richard Shepherd Moanataiari			15 November 1872	Rev. James Buller
334	26 November 1872	Edward Johns Caroline Mothersole	Edward Johns Evelin Wotherspoon Thorburn 💍 1872/9176	Bachelor Spinster	Storekeeper	21 19	Tararu Tararu	2½ years 2½ years	The dwelling house occupied by William Lang Esq Tararu	72/2319	Thorburn Mothersole, the father	28 November 1872	Rev. James Hill
335	30 November 1872	George Waite Elizabeth Bolton	George Waite Elizabeth Bolton 💍 1872/8282	Bachelor Spinster	Carter	20 21	Grahamstown Grahamstown	5 years 2 years	The office of the Registrar of Marriages Shortland	72/2240	Jane Waite, the mother	2 December 1872	J. Pomery
336	4 December 1872	William Leatham Mary Brand	William Carthew Mary Brent 💍 1872/8438 William Smythe Mary Grant 💍 1873/5279 William Havers Mary Barr 💍 1872/8858 William Geary Mary Cowan 💍 1872/3608 William Dochart Mary Bell 💍 1872/7199	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	29 23	Shortland Shortland	9 months 14 days	The dwelling house occupied by Mrs Stephen 73 Brown St Shortland	72/2292		5 December 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).