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 475

District of [unknown] 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
9	4 April 1873	John Kinnear Mary M. Clelland	John Kinnear Mary Jane McClelland 💍 1873/10633	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	36 35	Lower Wairan Bleuheim	6 years 18 months	House of [UNCLEAR] Cavell, Lower Wairan	73/982		4 April 1873	Rev. John B. Richardson
10	7 April 1873	George Withey Catherine Logan	George Withey Catherine Logan 💍 1873/9853	Bachelor Widow	Labourer	39	Lower Wairan Lower Wairan	8 years 8 years	House of [UNCLEAR]	73/1716		7 April 1873	Rev. William Shirriffs
11	21 April 1873	William Adams Isabella Rosefolk	William Adams Isabella Rose Colt 💍 1873/6409	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	20 22	Langley Dale Langley Dale	2 years 3 days	The Church of the Good Shepherd or the House of William Adams Senr., Langley Dale, both in the Wairan Valley	73/543	William Adams, father	21 April 1873	The Ven. Archdeacon Butt
12	14 May 1873	Sidney Haines Emily King	Sidney Haines Emily King 💍 1873/9856	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	24 17	Renwick Renwick	6 years one month	House of [UNCLEAR]	73/1717	George Henry King, brother	14 May 1873	Rev. William Shirriffs
13	26 May 1873	Robert Register Harriett Cate	Robert Register Harriet Cate 💍 1873/9859	Bachelor Spinster	Shearer	25 19	Blenheim Blenheim	10 years 18 mos	House of Mrs. Flood, High Street, Blenheim	73/1718	Harriett Cate, mother	26 May 1873	Rev. W. Shirriffs
14	28 May 1873	Francis Hammond Sarah Jemima Rawlings	Frances Hammond Sarah Jemima Rawlings 💍 1873/5725	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	24 20	Omaka Spring Creek	2 years 6 mos	Wesleyan Church	73/308	[UNCLEAR] Rawlings, father	28 May 1873	Rev. G. S. Harper
15	7 June 1873	John Hunter Black Ann Herd	John Hunter Black Ann Herd 💍 1873/9862	Bachelor Spinster	Shepherd	28 16	Meadow Bank Meadow Bank	4 1/2 years 9 years	House of David Herd, Meadow Bank	73/1719	David Herd, father	7 June 1873	Rev. W. Shirriffs

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).