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 335

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
222	18 October 1874	Henry Cook Jane Stoddart	Henry Cook Jane Stoddart 💍 1874/12283	Bachelor Widow	Sheepfarmer Dressmaker	29 28	Makara Wellington	29 yrs 1 mo	House of Robt Cook	2194		18 Nov 1874	Rev. W. Morley
223	19 Nov 1874	Joseph Roberts Barbara Mighton	Joseph Roberts Barbara Nicholson 💍 1874/13759	Bachelor Spinster	Armed Constab Servant	22 24	Wellington Wellington	6 mo 12 mo	Government House	2209		19 Nov 1874	Rev J. Paterson
224	20 Nov 1874	George Crosbie Johanna Jeremy	George Crosby Johanna Kennedy 💍 1874/12343	Bachelor Spinster	Groom Servant	27 23	Wellington Wellington	8 yrs 9 mo	Roman Catholic Cathedral Hill Street	2214		20 Nov 1874	Rev J.B. Petit Jean Rie
225	21 Nov 1874	George Phipps Sarah Greaves	George Phipps Sarah Greaves 💍 1874/12286	Bachelor Widow	Blacksmith Laundress	35 38	Johnsonville Johnsonville	12 mo 12 mo	Wesleyan Church Manners Street	2195		21 Nov 1874	Rev. W. Morley
226	23 Nov 1874	Charles Briscoe Eliza Catherine Brock	Charles Dixon Eliza Catherine Duck 💍 1874/12289	Bachelor Spinster	Compositor [UNCLEAR]	21 21	Wellington Wellington	14 mo 21 yrs	Wesleyan Church Manners Street	2196		Dec 8 1874	Rev. W. Morley
227	23 Nov 1874	Thomas Rush Sarah Ann Walker	Thomas Brough Elizabeth Anne Walker 💍 1874/13900	Bachelor Spinster	Sailor Librarian	32 21	Wellington Wellington	5 mo 3 mo	Register Office Wellington	2218		Nov 23 1874	R.C. Hammerton
228	24 Nov 1874	William Whitehouse Susan Sillett	William Whitehouse Susan Jillett 💍 1874/12352	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	34 19	Porirua Porirua	33 yrs 19 yrs	Register Office Wellington	2217	John White Thos Millo Guardians	Nov 24 1874	R.C. Hammerton

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).