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 911

District of Invercargill 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
21	6 July 1874	Joseph Goulley Margaret Pollock	Joseph Gourley Margaret Pollock 💍 1874/13408	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	27 24	Mataura Plains Mataura Plains	3 years 2 months	At the Church of England, Invercargill	2577		6th July 1874	Rev. W.D. Lumel
22	11th July 1874	George Ingles Marion Codling	George Ingles Marion Codling 💍 1874/11809	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Domestic Servant	29 22	Invercargill Invercargill	13 years 18 months	At the Residence of William Bodly, Invercargill	74/2027		13th July 1874	The Registrar
23	14th July 1874	William Frederick Willson Mary Fraser	William Frederick Willson Mary Fraser 💍 1874/9646	Bachelor Spinster	Railway Porter Domestic Servant	28 20	Invercargill Invercargill	6 years 5 years	At the house of Donald Fraser, Seaward Bush	74/1287	Donald Fraser, father Invercargill	16th July 1874	Rev. Andrew Stobo
24	20th July 1874	David Ellis Ramsay Neven Jane Thomson	Daniel Elles Ramsay Nevin Jane Thomson 💍 1874/9964	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	26 21	Invercargill Invercargill	18 years 10 years	At the house of D.E.R Neven Leaward Bush	74/1393		20th July 1874	Rev. J.A. Taylor
25	22nd July 1874	Duncan Rodd Surah Ann Painter	Duncan Ross Sarah Ann Painter 💍 1874/9643	Bachelor Spinster	Shepherd Domestic Servant	27 21	Waimea Plains Waimea Plains	6 years 3 years	At the house of J.P. Golforth, Invercargill	1286		22nd July 1874	Rev. Andrew Stobo
26	22nd July 1874	James Smith Foldie Ann Ship	James Smith Goldie Ann Laing 💍 1874/9967	Bachelor Spinster	Draper	24 21	Invercargill Invercargill	2 years 13 years	At the house of J.R. Laing, Invercargill	1394		22nd July 1874	Rev. J.B. Taylor
27	24th July 1874	Stephen Duthie Wilson Margaret Hardy	Stephen Durtnell Margaret Gradey 💍 1874/13411	Bachelor Spinster	Miner Domestic Servant	22 21	Invercargill Invercargill	7 months 1 day	At the Residence of [UNCLEAR] Shepherd, Invercargill	2578		25th July 1874	Rev. W.D. Lumel

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).