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 324

District of Wellington 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	Consent	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
149	25 August 1874	Michael Nicholas Laffin Emily Dawson	Michael Niellas Laffin Emily Dawson 💍 1874/10279	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Servant	31 28	Wellington Wellington	7mo 7mo	Roman Catholic Cathedral Hill Street	1501		25 Aug	Rev J.B. Petitjean
150	26 Aug 1874	John Walkley Margaret Macdonald	John Walkley Margaret MacDonald 💍 1874/10351	Bachelor Spinster	Steward Servant	34 22	Wellington Wellington	3yrs 6mo	House of Rev Imair	1526		26 Aug 1874	Rev Imair
151	27 Aug 1874	Daniel Egan Bridget Egan formerly OCane	Daniel Egan Bridget Egan 💍 1874/10285 Daniel Egan Bridget O'Kane 💍 1874/10456	Husband Wife	Contractor	38 25	Wellington Wellington	5wks 3yrs	Roman Catholic Church Hill Street	74/1503		28 Aug 1874	Rev J. Forest
152	31 Aug 1874	Charles Stephen Thomas Louisa Earp	Charles Stephen Thomas Louisa Earp 💍 1874/10666	Bachelor Spinster	Accountant Farmers Daughter	26 25	Wellington Porirua Rd	6mo 20 yrs	St Pauls Church Thorndon	1633	Res D.W. Still	31 Aug 1874	Rev A.W. Still
153	31 Aug 1874	Edward Hunt Mary Ann Balch	Edward Hunt Mary Ann Balch 💍 1874/10480	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Servant	21 19	Wellington Wellington	9mo 9mo	Wesleyan Chapel Manners Street	1570	No relation in N.Z.	Sept 14	Rev W. Morley
154	1 Sept 1874	George Andrews Catherine Evans	George Andrews Catherine Evans 💍 1874/9901	Bachelor Spinster	Carter Farmers Daughter	25 23	Wellington Wellington	15 yrs 5mo	House of Geo Andrews Tinakori Road	1372		Sept 1	Rev Edward Masterton
155	1 Sept 1874	Thomas Bassett Sarah Jessica Hudson	Thomas Bassett Sarah Jessica Hudson 💍 1874/13582	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Servant	35 19	Petoni Hutt	3.5 yrs 3mo	House of Wm Bassett Hutt	2638	Wm Bassett his relation in N.Z	Sept 15	Rev J.B. Richardson

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).