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 215

District of Wellington Quarter ending Apr - Jun

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
149	24 April 1872	Gad Carter Isabella Bromley	Gad Carter Isabella Bromley 💍 1872/4950	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Servant	21 19	Pahautanui Porirua	15 yrs 19 yrs	House of Rev J Morris	1106	Charlotte Bromley, Mother	8 May 1872	Rev J Morris
150	25 April 1872	William Light Susan Gray	William Light Susan Gray 💍 1872/9287	Bachelor Spinster	Mariner Servant	35 24	Wellington Wellington	2 dys 2 yrs	Roman Catholic Cathedral	72		26 April 1872	Rev JB Petit Jean
151	29 April 1872	George Henry Taylor Annie Galloway	George Henry Taylor Annie Galloway 💍 1872/9281	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer Farmer	23 19	Johnsonville Pahautanui	15 yrs 19 yrs	Church of England Johnsonville	72/2585	D Galloway, father	14 May 1872	Rev J W Sea Hill
152	30 April 1872	George Wilkins Cooley Caroline Worsley		Bachelor Spinster	Farmer Farmer	25 16	Hutt Featherston	8 yrs			C Worsley, father	18 May 1872	Officiating Minister Greytown
153	10 May 1872	William Russell Jane Gowler	William Russell Jane Fowler 💍 1872/4923	Bachelor Spinster	Dairy Farmer Dairy Farmer	22 20	Hutt Hutt	22 yrs 18 mo	Registrar's Office	911/1094	Samuel Rowe, uncle	16 May 1872	R.C. Hammerton
154	6 May 1872	Edward Sheen Bridget Magan	Edward Sheehan Bridget Hagan 💍 1872/9317	Bachelor Spinster	Carter Farmer	26 24	Wellington Wellington	1 yr 2 yrs	Roman Catholic Chapel Boulcott St.	72/2602	John Magan, father	24 May 1872	Rev J J O'Reilly
155	10 May 1872	Henry Barlow Lena Louisa Frazer	Henry Barlow Lina Louisa Frazer 💍 1872/5058	Bachelor Spinster	Upholsterer Domestic Servant	30 22	Wellington Wellington	2 yrs 5 yrs	St Peter's Church	911/1142		28 May 1872	Venble Archdn Stock

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).