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 659

District of Timaru 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
417	5 October 1874	John Butter Anne Poole	John Butler Annie Poole 💍 1874/13549	Bachelor Widow	Labourer Servant	35 34	Timaru Timaru	18 months 3 months	Primitive Methodist Chapel Timaru	2626		5 October 1874	Rev. Josiah Ward
418	23 October 1874	William Fitzgerald Maria [UNCLEAR]	William Fitzgerald Maria Shanahan 💍 1874/13531	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	29 22	Timaru Levels Plains	1 week 2 months	Catholic Chapel Timaru	2620		23 October 1874	Rev. John Chalymer
419	24 October 1874	John Cook Mary Sealey	John Cook Sarah Sealy 💍 1874/13969	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	23 23	Karina Waimataitai Valley	4 months 3 years	Residence of Henry Cook Waimataitai Valley	2775		24 October 1874	Rev George Foster
422	11 November 1874	Thomas Sanderson Agnes Gosling	Thomas Sanderman Dunn Agnes Gosling 💍 1874/13972	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	23 21	The [UNCLEAR], Oamaru Coanoa Farm	14 years one month	Residence of [UNCLEAR] Gosling	2776		11 November 1874	Rev George Foster
423	14 November 1874	Alfred James Lewis Harriet Keating	Alfred James Lewis Harriet Keating 💍 1874/13540	Bachelor Spinster	Surveyor	23 19	Timaru Timaru	one month one week	Office of Registrar of Marriages Timaru	2623	Declaration made that there is no person in the Colony to give consent to the marriage of Harriet Keating	14 November 1874	Registrar of Marriages Timaru
426	25 November 1874	Henry Odey Eliza Middleditch	Henry Odey Eliza Middleton 💍 1874/13543	Bachelor Spinster	Groom	22 21	Otaio Timaru	3 months 4 months	Office of Registrar of Marriages Timaru	2624		25 November 1874	Registrar of Marriages Timaru
427	12 December 1874	Johan Hanson Hanne Jensen	Johan Hansen Hanne Jensen 💍 1874/13546	Bachelor Spinster	Stonemason	26 19	Washdyke Washdyke	6 months 4 months	[UNCLEAR]	2625	Hans Peter Jensen, father	12 December 1874	Registrar of Marriages Timaru

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).