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 538

District of Hokitika 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
514	17 May 1872	James Knox Grant Rosetta Holman	James Knox Grant Rosetta Holman 💍 1872/6503	Widower Spinster	Gentleman	37 [UNCLEAR]	Hokitika Westport	7 days 6 Months	Private Residence of William Leary Hokitika	1633		17 May 1872	[UNCLEAR]
515	22 May 1872	Patrick McDonald Elizabeth Delaney	Patrick McDonald Elizabeth Delaney 💍 1872/7502	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	31 25	Ross Hokitika	6 years 3 years	Roman Catholic Church Hokitika	1968		23 May 1872	The Revd P A Maher
516	23 May 1872	William Swane Murphy Elizabeth Conroy Smith	William Swane Murphy Elizabeth Conn 💍 1872/7505 William Murphy Elizabeth Seed 💍 1872/6068	Bachelor Widow	Miner	32 30	Ross Smiths	7 years 5 years	[UNCLEAR] Mrs Elizabeth Smith Hokitika	1969		23 May 1872	The Revd P.A. Maher
517	31 May 1872	Henry Jacobs Mary Annie Phillips	Henry Jacobs Mary Annie Phillips 💍 1872/7613	Bachelor Spinster	Upholsterer	23 21	Hokitika Hokitika	9 years 3 Months	At the Wesleyan Chapel Hokitika	2008		31 May 1872	The Revd Mr Shirer
518	3 June 1872	William John Hughes Margaret Cooper	William John Hurst Margaret Cooper 💍 1872/7559	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	26 19	Hokitika Hokitika	3 days 3 Months	Church of England Hokitika	1989	Mary Vallance Mother of Margaret Cooper	3 June 1872	The Revd Mr Cooper
519	11 June 1872	Michael Lowry Anne Graham	Michael Loury Organ Anne Graham 💍 1872/7484	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	36 27	Kanieri Hokitika	9 years 12 Months	Church of England Hokitika	1990		11 June 1872	The Revd Mr Cooper
520	27 June 1872	Cornelius Hartnett Catherine Green	Cornelius Hartnett Catherine Irwin 💍 1872/7508	Bachelor Spinster	Miner Servant	38 30	Kanieri Hokitika	9 years 2 years	Roman Catholic Church Hokitika	1970		27 June 1872	The Revd P.A. Maher

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).