Intentions to Marry, 1874

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840386, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Page 181

District of Shortland Quarter ending 31 March 1874

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
449	22 December 1873	Richard Potter Martha Clark	Richard Potter Martha Clarke 💍 1874/6106	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	25 years 18 years	Moanataieri Tararu	4 years 5 years	The office of the Registrar of Marriages	74/76	Thomas Clark, "The Father"	6 January 1874	E. H. Power
454	30 December 1873	Josias Hoskins Matilda Sommerton	Josias Hoskin Matilda Summerton 💍 1874/6133	Bachelor Spinster	Commission Agent	30 years 19 years	Karaka Karaka	5 years 4 years	The dwelling house occupied by the Revd. John S. Crump, Hape	74/86	Thomas Sommerton, "The Father"	14 January 1874	The Revd. John Crumpo
455	5 January 1874	Francis Danby Mary Ann Morton	Francis Danby Mary Ann Morton 💍 1874/6115	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	19 years 19 years	Karaka Karaka	6 years 6 years	The dwelling house occupied by Samuel Symonds Morton Sealey, Grey Street, Tararu	74/79	Samuel Morton, "The Father"	5 January 1874	The Revd. W. Jones
456	6 January 1874	Charles Cox Mary Ann Brown	Charles Cox Mary Ann Brown 💍 1874/6142	Bachelor Spinster	Chemist	39 years 18 years	Thames Thames	5 years 5 years	St. George's Church, The Thames	74/89	Robert Samuel Brown, "The Father"	6 January 1874	The Revd. V. Lush
457	6 January 1874	William Dare Mary Ann Herrick	William Dare Mary Ann Herrick 💍 1874/6148	Bachelor Spinster	Miner Servant	28 years 22 years	Waiotahi Waiotahi	5 years 2 years	The dwelling house occupied by the Revd. V. Lush, Mary St., Thames	74/91		21 January 1874	The Revd. V. Lush
458	9 January 1874	David Craiggie Hannah Smith	David Craigie Hannah Smith 💍 1874/6130	Bachelor Widow	Carpenter Domestic	40 years 40 years	Hauraki Thames	6 years 4 years	The dwelling house of Mrs. Vickery, Pollen Street, Thames	74/85		9 January 1874	The Revd. I. S. Crumpo
459	10 January 1874	Edward James Norris Elizabeth Reid	Edward James Norris Elizabeth Reid 💍 1874/6145	Bachelor Spinster	Miner Domestic	35 years 22 years	Thames Turanui	6 years 4 years	St. George's Church, Thames	74/90		21 January 1874	The Revd. V. Lush
460	14 January 1874	William Lwryston Barbara Blane	William Livingstone Barbara Blare 💍 1874/6118	Widower Spinster	Miner Domestic	33 years 24 years	Waiotahi Waiotahi	5 years 5 years	The dwelling house occupied by William Lwryston, Waiotahi	74/80		14 January 1874	The Revd. David Bruce

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).