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 209

District of Wellington Quarter ending Jan - Mar

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
144	18 January 1872	Charles Robert Miles Annie Maria Pain	Charles Robert Miller Annie Pain 💍 1872/5040	Bachelor Spinster	Settler d: Geo Pain Wellington Bricklayer	28 20	Wellington Wellington	8 dys 20 yrs	St. Peters Church	1136.	Geo. Pain Father	19 January 1872	Ven: Archdn Stock
145	8 February 1872	Duncan Sinclair Martha Mahoney formerly Mowlem	Duncan Sinclair Martha Mahoney 💍 1872/4971	Bachelor Widow	Farmer d: H. J. Mowlem Melbourne Stonemason ws - Mahoney Stonemason	25 27	Wainuiomata Wainuiomata	25 yrs 16 mos	House of Mr. Paterson terrace	721		9 February 1872	Rev. Jas Paterson
146	10 February 1872	James Day Erskine Hannah Wilson	James Hay Erskine Hannah Wilson 💍 1872/9296	Bachelor Spinster	Settler d: H. Wilson Publican Waikanae	24 27	Waikanae Waikanae	2½ yrs 11 yrs	Church of England Otaki	72/259		10 February 1872	Revd James McWilliam
147	12 February 1872	Frank Broughton Elizabeth Crowder	Frederick Broughton Elizabeth Crowder 💍 1872/5013	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk d: Jno Crowder Wellington	23 18	Wellington Wellington	9 mos 18 yrs	Roman Catholic Cathedral Hill Street	1124	John Crowder Father	12 February 1872	Very Revd Bishop Viard
148	12 February 1872	William Anniss Jane Elizabeth	William Anniss Jane Elizabeth Mason 💍 1872/4896	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer Step d: foliston Mason	25 21	Wellington Wellington	14 dys 14 dys	Karori Church	1086.		12 February 1872	Very Revd Bishop Hadfield
149	12 February 1872	John Shaw Sarah Jane Taylor	John Shaw Sarah Jane Taylor 💍 1872/5043	Bachelor [UNCLEAR]	Settler d: J. M. Taylor	full full	Wellington Wellington	3 wks many years	St. Peters Church	1137.		12 February 1872	Ven: Archdn Stock
150	13 February 1872	Joseph James Birohly Helen Sheaset	James Joseph Birchly Helen Shearer 💍 1872/4935	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer d: Wm Shearet Blenheim Laborer	21 14	Wellington Wellington	14 yrs 14 yrs	House of Mr. Prosser Pipitea	1101.	Wm Sheaset Father	13 February 1872	Revs John Moir

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).