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 275

District of Wellington Quarter ending 30 June 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
68	4 June 1873	William George Sayers Mary Ann Sayers	William George Mary Ann Sayers 💍 1873/10243	Bachelor Spinster	Blacksmith Diver	23 21	Wellington Wellington	2 1/2 yrs 14 mo	House of Tho George	73/1849		4 June 1873	Rev. J. Muir
69	11 June 1873	George Harris Charlotte Hutchison	George Harriss Charlotte Hutchinson 💍 1873/10180	Bachelor Spinster	Overseer Sheep Station Servant	24 21	Hutt Hutt	1 wk 8 yrs	House of Abraham Parsia, Taita	73/1828		11 June 1873	Rev. B. Harvey
70	18 June 1873	Humphrey OLeary Ellen Cronin	[No matching marriage registration has been located]	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer Servant	33 28	Wellington Wellington	14 dys 4 yrs	Roman Catholic Chapel, Boulcott St.			18 June 1873	Rev. J. P. O'Reilly
71	23 June 1873	Thomas John Devine Ann Eliza Wood	Thomas John Devine Anne Eliza Wood 💍 1873/10246	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer Laborer	21 18	Wainuiomata Wainuiomata	20 yrs 18 yrs	House of Rev. J. Moir	73/1850	Maria Wood, Mother	26 June 1873	Rev. J. Moir
72	24 June 1873	John Bertie Emily Lormor	John Bertie Emily Connor 💍 1873/10108	Bachelor Spinster	Foreman Housemaid	27 24	Wellington Wellington	9 mo 4 mo	House of Rev. Registrar	73/1804		24 June 1873	Rev. J. B. Petitjean
73	26 June 1873	Henry Davey Mary Ann France	Henry Davey Mary Ann Franks 💍 1873/10420	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	22 21	Wellington Wellington	6 mo 6 mo	Registrar's Office, Lambton Quay	73/1910		26 June 1873	Ven. Archdn Stock
74	27 June 1873	Henry Purdon Emma Groves	Henry Purdon Emma Groves 💍 1873/10183	Divorced Spinster	Surgeon	30 20	Hutt Hutt	6 dys 6 dys	House of Nathaniel Valentine, Hutt	73/1829	No relation in NZ	27 June 1873	Rev. G. L. Ogg

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).