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 381

District of Napier 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
506	1 July 1874	George Edward Young Elizabeth Collins	George Young Elizabeth Fruish 💍 1874/8581	Bachelor Widow	Carter Nil	28 27	Napier Napier	8 years 14 years	residence of John Collins, Napier	1429		1 July 1874	Rev. H. B. Redstone
507	1 July 1874	Richard Carlie Anna Mary Ann Begg	Richard Carter Anna Margaret Begg 💍 1874/11437	Bachelor Spinster	H.M. Customs Nil	29 21	Napier Napier	4 years 15 years	residence of A. Degg Esq., Napier	1899		3 July 1874	Rev. D. Sidey
508	2 July 1874	William Cowburn Louisa Degrancy	William Edwards Louisa De Gruchy 💍 1874/10018	Bachelor Spinster	Draper Milliner	28 21	Napier Napier	2 years 6 months	residence of Mrs Letheredlow, Napier	1412		2 July 1874	Rev. J. Smalley
509	3 July 1874	Frank Sanders Eliza Ward	Frank Sanders Eliza Ward 💍 1874/11443	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter Nil	28 19	Napier Napier	6 months 5 months	residence of Mrs Letheredlow, Napier	1901	Martha Ward, Guardian	7 July 1874	Rev. D. T. Stuart
510	7 July 1874	Edwin Grove Ste...eb Jessie Mary Lipcomb	Edwin Le Grand Jacob Jessie Mary Lipscomb 💍 1874/9595	Bachelor Spinster	Ship Joiner Nil	21 24	Napier Napier	3 Weeks 12 days	English Church, Napier	1269		7 July 1874	Rev. J. Townsend
511	7 July 1874	James Heagle Sarah Ellen Badley	James Neagle Sarah Ellen Badley 💍 1874/10303	Bachelor Spinster	Storekeeper Nil	24 18	Waresdale Napier	8 years 10 years	residence of John Nusselons Esq., Napier	1509	Hannah Badley, Mother	8 July 1874	Rev. Arthur Stock
512	8 July 1874	John Pegram Mary Gooddy	John Pegum Mary Goody 💍 1874/10075	Bachelor Widow	Joiner Cook	38 31	Napier Napier	6 Weeks 6 Weeks	Methodist Church	1430		8 July 1874	Rev. John A. Redstone
513	10 July 1874	Thomas Robb Aplin Flora McKav	Thomas Robert Spiller Flora McKay 💍 1874/5781	Bachelor Spinster	Builder Dressmaker	30 16	Napier Napier	7 years 6 months	residence of Mr Aplin, Napier	1496	[UNCLEAR] Guardian in the Colony	10 July 1874	Rev. H. B. Redstone
514	13 July 1874	George Walker Margaret Elliott	George Walker Margaret Elliott 💍 1874/11440	Bachelor Spinster	Shepherd Domestic	26 21	Napier	6 Weeks 6 months	Presbyterian Church, Napier	74/1900		13 July 1874	Rev. D Sidey

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).