Intentions to Marry, 1873

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840385, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Luke Howison at Archives NZ Wellington, December 4 2024

Page 195

District of Shortland Quarter ending 31 December 1873

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
446	2 December 1873	John Ellis Maryann Price	John Ellis Mary Ann Price 💍 1873/9442	Widower Widow	Miner Milliner	30 years 29 years	Karaka Shortland	5 years 5 years	The dwelling house occupied by William Corkhill Mackey, Shortland	73/1573		2 December 1873	Rev. John Crump
447	3 December 1873	Julian Jenkins Sarah Potter	John Jenkins Sarah Potter 💍 1873/10513	Bachelor Spinster	Waterman	30 years 21 years	Shortland Shortland	3 years 1 year	The dwelling house occupied by Rev. Lush, Mary Street, Shortland	73/1941	The mother	3 December 1873	Rev. James Hill
448	9 December 1873	Thomas Chapple Sarah Parker	Thomas Chapple Sarah Parker 💍 1873/10531	Bachelor Spinster	Miner Servant	20 years 21 years	Waioitahi Waioitahi	6 years 1 year	The house occupied by the mother, West Shortland	74/47	Vans French	9 December 1873	Rev. V. Lush
449	22 December 1873	Richard Potter Martha Clark	Richard Potter Martha Clarke 💍 1874/6106	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	25 years 18 years	Moanatairi Tararu	4 years 5 years	The office of the Registrar of Marriages, Shortland	74/76	Thomas Clark, the father	24 December 1873	Rev. James Hill
450	24 December 1873	Oliver Garrett Florence Rosener	Oliver Garrett Elgiva Florence 💍 1874/9424	Bachelor Spinster	Settler	31 years 28 years	Grahamstown Grahamstown	6 years 3 years	The dwelling house occupied by Oliver Garrett, Kerhswood Street, Grahamstown	74/1211		24 December 1873	Rev. James Hill
451	29 December 1873	Frederick Sorrell Sarah Hall	Frederick Sowter Sarah Hall 💍 1873/10906	Widower Spinster	Mariner	29 years 17 years	Shortland Shortland	6 years 6 years	The dwelling house occupied by Henry Dalton, Grey Street, Shortland	74/1268	Thomas Hall, the father	29 December 1873	Rev. James Hill
452	29 December 1873	Henry William Hillates Sarah Ann Hodgs Hart	Henry Willetts Sarah Ann Hodge Hart 💍 1874/6112	Widower Spinster	Miner	34 years 24 years	Shortland Grahamstown	19 months 15 months	At the residence of Charles Hart, Grahamstown	74/48	Albert P. Grahamstown	29 December 1873	Rev. C. H. Jones
453	30 December 1873	Thomas Gilmour Margaret Long	Thomas Gilmour Margaret Long 💍 1874/9427	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	30 years 25 years	Kurunui Moanatairi	5 years 1 year	The dwelling house occupied by Mr James Hill, The Thames	74/1212		30 December 1873	Rev. James Hill

These records have been automatically transcribed and must be verified using the page image (below)

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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).