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 325

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
142	14 August 1874	Thomas McCormice Elizabeth Lurwin	Thomas McCormack Elizabeth Kerwain 💍 1874/10282	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	26 25	Hutt Wellington	18mo 1wk	Roman Catholic Cathedral Hill Street	1502		Aug 14	Rev J.B. Petit Jean
143	15 August 1874	Donald McKay Mary Ann Whittell	Donald McKay Mary Ann Winkley 💍 1874/11242	Bachelor Widow	Master Mariner	31 40	Wellington Wellington	10 dys 15 yrs	House of P. Archibald Courtenay Place	1230		Aug 15	Rev C.S. Edy
144	21 August 1874	Thomas Dynch Maud Margaret Myra Strickland	Thomas Lynch Maud Margaret Myra Houlahan 💍 1874/13576	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter Nurse	29 21	Wellington Wellington	15 mo 9 mo	Wesleyan Chapel Hutt	2636		Aug 24	Rev J.B. Richardson
145	24 August 1874	William Henry Swain Elizabeth Ellison	William Henry Swain Elizabeth Ellison 💍 1874/10663	Bachelor Spinster	Iron dore	26 18	Wellington Wellington	10 dys 18 yrs	St Paul's Church Thorndon	1632	Thos Ellison, Father	Sept 8	Rev Blo Harvey
146	24 August 1874	James Scrimshaw Martha Solley	James Scrimshaw Marthey Jolley 💍 1874/10396	Bachelor Spinster	Cabinet Maker Laborer	18 23	Hutt Hutt	18 yrs 10 yrs	Roman Catholic Church Hutt	1571	Geo Scrimshaw, Father	Sept 21	Rev. P. McLoughlin
147	24 August 1874	Alexander James Pickering Elizabeth Emma Parker	Alexander James Pickering Connell Elizabeth Emma Parker 💍 1874/10348	Bachelor Spinster	Mariner	28 21	Wellington Wellington	18 mo 19 yrs	House of Mary Parkes Showes Lane	1525		Aug 24
148	24 August 1874	Henry Burbush Ellen Read	Henry Burbush Ellen Reay 💍 1874/10345	Bachelor Widow	Carter w. Jno Read formerly Watts	29 34	Wellington Wellington Bootmaker	3 mo 30 yrs	House of Ellen Read Molesworth Street	1524		Aug 24	Rev J. Moir

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).