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 817

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
319	16 October 1874	Alexander Anderson Hunter Maria Langley	Alexander Anderson Hunter Maria Langley 💍 1874/13336	Bachelor Widow	Contractor Housekeeper	32 33	Tokomairiro Tokomairiro	3 days 6 years	In the Manse of the	2552		Oct 16	Revd John Gow
320	17 October 1874	Richard Holder Helen Kidd	Richard Holden Helen Wilson 💍 1874/12637	Bachelor Spinster	Miner Servant	30 23	Tokomairiro Tokomairiro	7 Day 7 Day	St John Church	2315		Oct 17	Revd Richard Coffey
321	20 October 1874	William Hanify Ann Kane	William Hanify Anne Kane 💍 1874/11839	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Servant	34 25	Tokomairiro Tokomairiro	1 year 1 Month	In the Roman Catholic Chapel	2040		Oct 20	Revd Thomas Linehan
322	21 October 1874	Rodger Grealish Mary Qualter	Rodger Grealish Mary Quatter 💍 1874/11842	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Servant	30 25	Tokomairiro Tokomairiro	11 years 3 Days	In the Roman Catholic Chapel	2041		Oct 21	Revd Thomas Linehan
323	14 November 1874	John Fahey Amelia Ann Arthur	John Fahey Amelia Ann Arthur 💍 1874/12640	Bachelor Spinster	Roughman Servant	21 17	Tokomairiro Tokomairiro	6 month 11 years	St John Church Milton	2316	Samuel Arthur Grandfather	Nov 16	Revd Richard Coffey
324	30 November 1874	James Allan Elizabeth Marshall Duff	James Strain Elizabeth Marshall Duff 💍 1874/11782	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	40 27	Tokomairiro Tokomairiro	18 years 15 years	In the house of William Duff Farmer	2017		Nov 30	Revd John M Allan
325	2 December 1874	William Gray Margaret Gray	William Gray Mary McRae 💍 1874/12682	Widower Spinster	Coachman Dressmaker	34 24	Tokomairiro Tokomairiro	6 month 3 Days	In the house of	2317		Dec 3	Revd Richard Coffey
326	21 December 1874	Andrew Hunter Janet Harron	Andrew Hewitson Janet Hewson 💍 1874/11779	Bachelor Spinster	Contractor Servant	26 22	Tokomairiro Tokomairiro	8 years 6 years	In the house of Andrew Hunter Senr	2016		Dec 21	Revd John Mc Ara
327	29 December 1874	John Powley Hannah Cook	John Sewell Sarah Cook 💍 1874/13255	Widower Widow	Carter Housekeeper	50 53	Tokomairiro Tokomairiro	15 years 6 month	St John Church Milton	2317		Dec 29	Revd Richard Coffey

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).