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 451

District of Waimea South 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
154	October 1874	Thomas Hewth Martina Elizabeth Brewerton	Thomas Newth Martina Elizabeth Brewerton 💍 1874/12457	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	26 22	Spring Grove Spring Grove	1 year 3 months	at the residence of Thomas Hewth, Spring Grove	2234		November 27th 1874	Rev Edward Thomas
155	October 29th 1874	Eliab Baigent Charlotte Berry	Eliat Baigent Charlotte Verry 💍 1874/13105	Bachelor Spinster	Bootmaker	26 19	Wakefield Wakefield	21 years 19 years	St John's Church Wakefield	2274	Rhoda Berry, mother	November 12th 1874	Rev Charles Moon
156	November 23rd 1874	Francis Burrin Anne Lousia Hunt	Francis Currin Annie Louisa Hunt 💍 1874/12475	Bachelor Spinster	Baker	25 17	Wakefield Wakefield	25 years 16 years	Residence of William Hunt Hunt Boot- maker Wakefield	2260	William Hunt, Father	November 23rd 1874	Rev William Keall
157	November 24th 1874	Walter Cadley Hannah Eliza Baigent	Wallis Ladley Hannah Eliza Baigent 💍 1874/13108	Bachelor Spinster	Schoolmaster	29 23	Spring Grove Wakefield	20 years 23 years	Residence of E. Baigent Miller Wakefield	2275		December 8th 1874	Rev Charles Moon
158	December 4th 1874	William Rutherford Emma Louisa Kearns	William Rutherford Emma Louisa Kearns 💍 1874/13879	Bachelor Spinster	Waggoner	26 21	Spring Grove Kanzan Waimea East	25 years 21 years	Church of the Holy Trinity East Richmond			December 4th 1874	Rev Henry Rutherford
159	December 5th 1874	Joseph Holland Ann Susan Lines	Joseph Hillard Minna Lucy Lines 💍 1874/13111	Bachelor Spinster	Sawyer	24 18	Fox-hill Upper Wakefield	12 years 18 years	St Paul's Church Spring Grove	2276	Benjamin Lines, Father	December 19th 1874	Rev Charles Moon
160	December 5th 1874	George Holland Mary Hamah Lines	George Holland Mary Hannah Lines 💍 1874/13114	Bachelor Spinster	Sawyer	22 12	Fox-hill Wakefield	12 years 12 years	St. Paul's Church Spring Grove	2277	Benjamin Lines, Father	December 19th 1874	Rev Charles Moon
161	December 5th 1874	Robert Pettit Eliza Frances Currin	Robert Pettit Eliza Frances Currin 💍 1874/12481	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	23 17	Wakefield Wakefield	2 years 17 years	Residence of John Currin Farmer Wakefield	2262	John Currin, Father	December 19th 1874	Rev Decimus Dolamore

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).