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 657

District of Timaru 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
404	11 July 1874	Alexander Rose Mary Jn Lennon	Alexander Rose Mary McLennan 💍 1874/9961	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	39 32	Timaru Timaru	3 days 2 weeks	Residence of Mr Taylor Timaru	1392		11 July 1874	Rev William R Campbell
405	20 July 1874	John Mays Janett Brown	John Mays Jannett Brown 💍 1874/9958	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	35 24	Timaru Timaru	4 days 14 days	Residence of J Johnstone Timaru	1391		20 July 1874	Rev William R Campbell
406	21 July 1874	John Durley Louisa Kinsman	John Deeley Louisa Kinsman 💍 1874/13948	Bachelor Spinster	Cook	30 25	Timaru Timaru	11 months 6 months	St Mary Church Timaru	2768		21 July 1874	Rev George Foster
407	22 July 1874	Walter Charles Furly Charlotte Baker	Walter Charles Fusby Charlotte Baker 💍 1874/9637	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	26 19	Timaru Timaru	5 years 5 years	Office of Registrar Marriages Timaru	1283	Martha Baker Mother	22 July 1874	Registrar of Marriages Timaru
408	28 July 1874	John Ryan Bridget Connel	John Ryan Bridgett Connell 💍 1874/10897	Bachelor Spinster	Labour	29 24	Timaru Timaru	3 days 3 days	Catholic Chapel Timaru	74/1714		28 July 1874	Rev John Baptisite Chataigner
409	3 August 1874	Samuel Kennard Annie Raspberry	Samuel Kennard Annie Rasmussen 💍 1874/10642	Bachelor Spinster	Painter Servant	25 23	Timaru Timaru	5 days 3 months	Residence of Mr Davenport Timaru	1625		3 August 1874	Rev Josiah Ward
410	22 August 1874	Edwin Butchers Mary Ann Lawrence	Edwin Butcher Mary Ann Lawrence 💍 1874/10645	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer Servant	34 30	Otipua Road Timaru	5 years 2 years	Methodist Chapel Timaru	1626		22 August 1874	Rev Josiah Ward
411	31 August 1874	James King Mary Campbell	James King Mary Campbell 💍 1874/10153	Bachelor Spinster	Stable Keeper	32 24	Timaru Southbridge	6 years 8 years	Presbyterian Church Southbridge	74/1456		31 August 1874	Rev J W Cree
412	4 September 1874	William Fergus Catherine Kellies	William Fergus Catherine Kellas 💍 1874/10636	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer Servant	28 22	Timaru Timaru	3 days 1 month	Primitive Methodist Church Timaru	74/1623		4 September 1874	Rev Josiah Ward

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).