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 276

District of Wanganui Quarter ending Oct - Dec

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
57	14 December 1874	James Curtis Ellen O'Donohue	James Curtis Ellen O'Donoghue 💍 1874/11947	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	32 years 21 years and 6 months	Wanganui Wanganui	5 years 8 months	In the Roman Catholic Church Wanganui	74/2077		14 December 1874	Rev. Father Tresallet
58	28 December 1874	Henry Alexander McLachlan Mary Ann Meehan	Alexander McLachlan Mary Ann Meehan 💍 1874/11944	Bachelor Spinster	Master Mariner	33 years 26 years	Wanganui Wanganui	3 weeks 4 years	at the residence of Rev Meehan Church street Wanganui	2076		28 December 1874	Rev. Father Tresallet
153	14 November 1874	William Ritchie Jane Deans	William Ritchie Jane Deans 💍 1874/13666	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	30 years 26 years	Wanganui Wanganui	11 years 2 years	at the residence of Thomas Low	2667		14 November 1874	Rev. David Hogg
154	28 October 1874	Patrick Murphy Bridget Buckley	Patrick Murphy Bridget Buckley 💍 1874/11980	Bachelor Spinster	Shoemaker	28 years 25 years	Wanganui Wanganui	3 days 3 days	At the residence of Mr Leyden	2088		28 October 1874	Rev. Father Tresallet
155	24 November 1874	Alfred John Symes Harriet Miriam Morgan	Alfred John Symes Harriet Miriam Morgan 💍 1874/11932	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	24 years 19 years	Wangawai Wangauii	10 years 16 years	at Mr Gerse's private residence Putiki	2071	John W Gerse, step father and Guardian	24 November 1874	Rev. J. Berry
156	4 December 1874	Walter Taylor Jane Perry	Walter Taylor Jane Percy 💍 1874/11929	Bachelor Spinster	Contractor	29 years 18 years	Wanganui Wanganui	9 years 2 years	In the Wesleyan Church	2070	Robert Perry, Father	4 December 1874	Rev. J. Berry
159	29 December 1874	Joseph Doler Martha Hogg	Joseph Soler Martha Hogg 💍 1874/11941	Bachelor Spinster	Gardener	30 years 14 years	Wanganui Wanganui	9 years 5 months	In the Roman Catholic Church	2075	John McClenaghan, Brother in Law and Guardian	29 December 1874	Rev. Father Tresallet
160	30 December 1874	Eric Sursted Susannah Jane Davidson	Eric Henry Oscar Suisted Susanah James Davidson 💍 1875/445	Bachelor Spinster		23 years 20 years	Wanganui Wanganui	15 days 15 years	at the Steam Packet Hotel	1464	Mary Maria Blair, Mother	30 December 1874	Rev. J. Elemsley

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).