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 459

District of Buller Quarter ending Jan - Mar

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
147	15 January 1874	Johan Berlin Catherine Mather	Johan Berlin Catherine McKee 💍 1874/6637	Bachelor Widow	Miner	36 35	Westport	14 days 14 days	Roman Catholic Church Westport	74/252		16 January 1874	Rev. J. Thomas
148	19 January 1874	Josiah Gilbert Mackey Georgina Moore	Josiah Gilbert Mackay Georgina Moore 💍 1874/7486	Bachelor Widow	Police	29 23	Westport	14 days 7 days	Methodist Church at Westport	74/548		19 January 1874	Rev. J. C. Soutaz
149	19 January 1874	William Harrison Sarah Groom	William Harrison Sarah Frost 💍 1874/7489	Bachelor Spinster	Storekeeper	30 21	Goldsborough					19 January 1874
150	24 February 1874	John Hindley Margaret Badger	John Linley Margaret Dwyer 💍 1874/7492 John Walkley Margaret MacDonald 💍 1874/10351	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	29 21	Westport	2 years	Residence of	74/550		24 January 1874	Rev. J. C. Pouter
151	18 February 1874	Edward Hood Cornelia Moore	Edward Woodward Emmeline Moore 💍 1874/7495	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	30 18	Westport	2 years 1 year	Residence of Mrs Cook Westport	74/551	Mrs Cook Mother of Minor	18 February 1874	Rev. J. C. Pouter
152	8 March 1874	William Champion Maria France	William Champion Maria Franks 💍 1874/7498	Bachelor Widow	Miner	35 29	Westport	7 years 6 years	Residence of W Champion Westport	74/552		8 March 1874	Rev. J. C. Soutaz
153	10 March 1874	Richard Rowland Mary Jane	Richard Rowlands Mary Tyre 💍 1874/7501 Richard King Mary Jane Todd 💍 1874/10465	Bachelor Spinster	Shipmaster	44 40	Westport	2 years 6 months	Residence of Mr. White Westport	74/553		10 March 1874	Rev. J. C. Pouter
154	24 March 1874	Herman Heller Philippina Weideman	Herrman Hiller Philippine Weideman 💍 1874/6646	Bachelor Spinster	Surveyor	35 21	Westport	15 mos 6 mos	EuorpeanHotel Charleston	74/257		24 March 1874	Rev. John Parkin

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).