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 789

District of Unknown Quarter ending 1874

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
54	8 July 1874	George Walter Young Eliza Lewellyn	George Walter Young Eliza Llewellyn 💍 1874/9685 George Robert Young Eliza Tricklebank 💍 1875/736	Widower Widow	Distiller	46 45	East Taieri East Taieri	4 months 3 weeks	Office of Registrar East Taieri	1299		18 July 1874	James Weddell
55	21 July 1874	Samuel Grant Lucy Kiley Adam	Samuel Grant Lucy Riley Adam 💍 1874/10939	Bachelor Spinster	Settler	36 20	Otokia Otokia	4 years 6 years	House of William Adam, Otokia	1728	William Adam, father	4 August 1874	Rev. William Will
56	24 July 1874	Thomas Spence Elisabeth Rae	Thomas Spence Elizabeth Rae 💍 1874/10936	Bachelor Spinster	Coal Miner	22 18	East Taieri Mosgiel	10 mos 3 years	House of Walter Rae, Mosgiel	1727	Walter Rae, father	24 July 1874	Rev William Will
57	30 July 1874	Thomas Allison Broadley Isabella Oliver	Thomas Allison Broadley Isabella Oliver 💍 1874/10942	Bachelor Widow	Wool Spinner	25 28	Mosgiel Mosgiel	5 mos 9 mos	House of Mrs. Oliver, Mosgiel	1729		30 July 1874	Rev William Will
58	20 August 1874	Donald McIntosh Christina Cameron	Donald McIntosh Christina Cameron 💍 1874/11110	Bachelor Spinster	Shepherd	40 32	Brighton Brighton	8 weeks 14 years	House of Mrs Cameron, Brighton	1784		20 August 1874	Rev Michael Watt
59	11 September 1874	David Agen Sarah Agnew	David Ager Sarah Agnew 💍 1874/10945	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	30 23	Mosgiel North Taieri	3 days 9 weeks	House of David Agen, Mosgiel	1730		11 September 1874	Rev William Will
60	23 Sept	Robert Findlay Marguret Steel	Robert Findlay Margaret Steel 💍 1874/10948	Bachelor Spinster	Gardener	33 23	East Taieri East Taieri	4 days 6 years	House of John Steel, East Taieri	1731		23 Sept	Rev William Will
61	29 Sept	James Hay Ann Milmine	James Kay Ann Milmine 💍 1874/12613	Widower Spinster	Carpenter	38 22	East Taieri Greytown	3 days 1 month	House of James Milmine, Greytown	2307		29 Sept	Rev William Will
62	30 Sept	Peter Manderson Jane Eliza Stevenson	Peter Maunderson Jane Eliza Stevenson 💍 1874/13792	Bachelor Spinster	Coal Miner	22 17	Fairfield Fairfield	8 years 11 mos	House of Peter Manderson, Fairfield	2711	William Stevenson, father	30 Sept	Rev Michael Watt

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).