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 192

District of Shortland Quarter ending Jul - Sep

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
506	14 August 1874	William Codward Isabella Smale	William Seed Isabella Watson 💍 1874/6760	Bachelor Spinster	Grocer	25 years 21 years	Thames Thames	5 years 5 years	The dwelling house occupied by Wm Read James Hill	2584	14 August 1874	Revd. James Hill
507	19 August 1874	Matthew Berryman Mary Ann Dallow	Matthew Berryman Mary Ann Parslow 💍 1874/10834	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	29 years 21 years	Thames Thames	4 years 5 years	St. Francis' R. C. Church Thames	1691	19 August 1874	Revd Thos A. Lonergan
508	28 August 1874	Martin Henry Payne Mary Ann Pheese	Martin Henry Payne Mary Ann Preece 💍 1874/10543	Bachelor Spinster	Physician	32 years 34 years	Thames Auckland	5 months	St. Sepulchre's Church Auckland	1592	28 August 1874	Revd B. T. Dudley
509	28 August 1874	Henry Grosdell Julia Eleanor Chivers	Henry Crosdell Lough Julia Eleanor Chivers 💍 1874/13423	Bachelor Widow	Miner	29 years 22 years	Thames Thames	1 year 18 months	The dwelling house occupied by Revd James Hill Karaka	2582	28 August 1874	Revd. James Hill
510	3 September 1874	Hugh Butler Ann Reilly	Hugh Butler Ellen Kelly 💍 1874/10837	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	35 years 29 years	Thames Parawai	5 years 1 year	St. Francis' R. C. Church Thames	1692	3 September 1874	Revd Thos A. Lonergan
511	8 September 1874	Henry Sale Sarah Shread	Henry Salt Sarah Emma Breeze 💍 1874/13738 Wm Henry Saies Sarah Bell 💍 1874/9793	Bachelor Spinster	Settler Milliner	32 years 23 years	Thames Thames	4 days 2 years	In the office of the Registrar	2575	8 September 1874	[UNCLEAR]
512	14 September 1874	Robert Fogg Margaret Dougherty	Robert Fox Margaret Doherty 💍 1874/10840	Bachelor Spinster	Miner Domestic	35 years 22 years	Thames Thames	5 years 1 year	St. Francis' R. C. Church Thames	1693	14 September 1874	Revd Thos A. Lonergan
513	14 September 1874	George Wallace Henderson Charlotte Jane Fathers	George Wallace Henderson Charlotte Fathers 💍 1874/13426	Bachelor Spinster	Packer	24 years 19 years	Karaka Thames	5 months	The dwelling house occupied by Mr James Henderson Waitawheta Karaka	2583	14 September 1874	Revd. James Hill

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).