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 497

District of Greymouth 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
36	17 October 1874	William Wilson Eleanor Elson	William Wilson Ellinor Olson 💍 1874/12505	Widower Spinster	Farmer Servant	40 36	Greymouth	10 years 3 months	Private House of Rev. J. McIntosh	2270		17 October 1874	Rev. J. McIntosh
37	19 October 1874	John Warren Catherine Power	John Warren Catherine Power 💍 1874/12499	Bachelor Spinster	Storekeeper Servant	30 28	10 mile Beach Greymouth	4 years 3 Days	English Church Greymouth	2268		19 October 1874	Rev. G. F. H. Watkins
38	29 October 1874	Edward George Sweetman Sarah Ann Hemingway	Edward George Sweetman Sarah Anne Moutray 💍 1874/12520	Bachelor Spinster	Ship Carpenter Servant	28 20	Greymouth	4 years 9 years	Private House Hospital Street	2276	William Hemingway, Father	29 October 1874	Rev. J. McIntosh
39	29 October 1874	Henry William Beabrook Jane Foster	Henry William Seabrook Jane Forster 💍 1874/12523 Henry William Bowler Jane Kyle 💍 1874/7174	Widower Spinster	Carpenter Machinist	39 26	Greymouth	4 years 2 months	Private House of Mr. Falk	2277 2278		29 October 1874	Rev. J. McIntosh
40	4 November 1874	James Williams Sophia Bartley	James Williams Sophia Bartley 💍 1874/12526	Bachelor Spinster	Miner Milliner	25 25	Greymouth	5 Days 1 Day	Private House of Mr. Mellsop	2265 2278		4 November 1874	Rev. J. McIntosh
41	6 November 1874	David Rees Ann Keyan	David Tees Ann Keyser 💍 1874/13708	Bachelor Widow	Draughman Storekeeper	37 33	South Beach South Beach	8 years 2 years	Private House of Rev. J. McIntosh	2681		6 November 1874	Rev. J. McIntosh
42	10 November 1874	Augustus William Messner Wilhelmina Mary Sanders	Augustus William Wiesner Wilhelmina Mary Sanders 💍 1874/13711	Bachelor Spinster	Watchmaker None	41 19	Hokitika Greymouth	5 years 6 months	Private Residence of Mr. Sanders	2682	Conrad Albert Sanders, Father	10 November 1874	Rev. J. McIntosh

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).