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 189

District of Shortland 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	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
491	29 May 1874	Peter Harold Elizabeth Wadsworth	[Not married by him]	Bachelor Spinster	Mariner Domestic	28 21	Thames Thames	3 years 3 weeks	In the dwelling house occupied by Peter Harold, Pleasant Valley Thames		29 July 1874	Revd. James Hill
492	15 June 1874	James Butler Stoner Maria Biggs	James Butler Stoney Maria Biggs 💍 1874/10531	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk of R.M. Court	32 22	Thames Auckland	5 years 8 years	Holy Sepulchre Church Auckland		20 June 1874	Rev. O.B.T. Dudley
493	16 June 1874	John Dore Mary Ann Allen	[Not solemnized]	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	21 21	Thames Thames	1 month 14 days	St. Francis' R.C. Church Thames		16 June 1874	Rev. Father Lourigan
494	20 June 1874	Francis Bennetts Mary Mitchell	Francis Bennetts Mary Mitchell 💍 1874/8248	Bachelor Spinster	Miner Domestic	29 24	Thames Thames	1 1/2 years 8 months	The office of the Registrar of Marriages Shortland district	74/811	20 June 1874	E.H. Powby
495	23 June 1874	Thomas Henry Baylis Mary Josephine Barton	Thomas Henry Baylis Mary Josephine Barron 💍 1874/10831	Bachelor Spinster	Miner Domestic	35 22	Thames Thames	3 months 5 years	St. Francis' R.C. Church Thames		23 June 1874
496	23 June 1874	Martin Nolan Mary Alice Kelly	Martin Nolan Mary Kelley 💍 1874/7726	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	30 26	Karaka Thames	12 months 1 month	St. Francis' R.C. Church Thames	74/630	1/8/74	Rev. Father Lourigan
497	23 June 1874	Henry Gidley Hannah Harrison	Henry Gidleigh Hannah Harrison 💍 1874/8251	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter Publican	40 40	Karaka Karaka	8 days 5 weeks	The office of the Registrar of Marriages Shortland district	74/812	23 June 1874	E.H. Powr

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

100% Contrast

100% Brightness

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).