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 331

District of Wellington 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
194	19 October 1874	Henry Dodeworth Edward Ellen Pickess	Henry Dodsworth Edwards Ellen Pickess 💍 1874/12367	Bachelor Spinster	Bootmaker Wellington Labourer	23 18	Wellington Wellington	23 yrs 17 yrs	House of Rev J. Moir	2222	F. G. Pickess, Father	2 November 1874	Rev J. Moir
195	19 October 1874	Henry Richards Hollis Emily Dayoh	Henry Richard Hollis Emily Daysh 💍 1874/12277	Bachelor Spinster	Grocer Servant	23 18	Wellington Wellington	3 yrs 18 yrs	House of Eli Buck Boulcott Street	2192	John Dayoh, Father	2 November 1874	Rev W. Morley
196	20 October 1874	Henry Minifie Mary Jane Hill	Henry Minifie Mary Jane Hill 💍 1874/12271	Bachelor Spinster	Painter Servant	21 19	Wellington Wellington	21 yrs 16 mo	Wesleyan Church Manners Street	2190	No one authorised in Wellington	20 October 1874	Rev Morley
197	20 October 1874	Henry John Boley Eliza Ann Dayoh	Henry John Oxley Eliza Ann Daysh 💍 1874/12274	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter Yaita Farmer	24 23	Wellington Wellington	6 yrs 23 yrs	House of Eli Buck Boulcott Street	2191		20 October 1874	Rev W. Morley
198	21 October 1874	James Austing Ann Muir formerly Beveridge	James Austing Ann Muir 💍 1874/13765	Widower Widow	Gas fitter Servant	36 29	Wellington Wellington	5 mo 3 mo	Presbyterian Church Willis Street	2701		21 October 1874	Rev J. Paterson
199	21 October 1874	William Henry Cook Fanny Sarah Muscutt	William Henry Cook Fanny Sarah Muscutt 💍 1874/12370	Widower Spinster	Sailmaker Milliner	43 41	Wellington Wellington	3 yrs 10 dys	House of Rev J. Moir	2223		21 October 1874	Rev J. Moir
200	21 October 1874	Thomas William Bartram Annie Nevill Leafthe	Thomas William Bertram Annie Keanealey 💍 1874/13057	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Servant	24 28	Wellington Wellington	4 yrs 8 mo	St Pauls Church Thorndon	2458		21 October 1874	Rev B.W. Harvey

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).