Intentions to Marry, 1875

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840387, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Luke at Archives NZ Wellington, May 16 2025.

This register is quite fragile and some of the pages are damaged or even missing.

Page 972

District of Riverton Quarter ending 31 March 1875

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
149	7 January 1875	Samuel Bennett Mary Sowden	Samuel Bennett Mary Sowden 💍 1875/392	Bachelor Spinster	Sawmiller Domestic Servant	24 20	Riverton Riverton	14 years 7 years	Municipal Church, Riverton	75/135	Thomas Sowden, Father	15 January 1875	Benj Y. Bailey, Regr
150	13 January 1875	John Wallace Mary Jane Rodriquez	John Wallace Mary Jane Rodrigues 💍 1875/413	Bachelor Spinster	Gold Miner	24 19	Riverton Riverton	5 years 10 years	Office, Riverton	75/136	Thomas Rodriquez, Father	20 January 1875	Benj Y. Bailey, Regr
151	27 January 1875	John Sloan Isabella Gilchrist	John Sloan Isobella Gilchrist 💍 1875/256	Bachelor Spinster	Postmaster	40 27	Riverton Riverton	10 years 7 months	Residence of J. Reid, Riverton	75/137	J. Reid, Brother	27 January 1875	Rev. C. S. Ross
152	2 February 1875	George William Frederick Parkhurst Mary Jane Parkhurst	George William Brodrick Mary Jane Pankhurst 💍 1875/1195	Bachelor Spinster	Sawmiller	24 20	Riverton Riverton	10 months 11 years	St. Mary's Church, Riverton	75/138	James Parkhurst, Father	16 February 1875	Rev. W. F. Oldham
153	3 February 1875	Frank Teesdale Elizabeth Ann Abraham	Frank Teisdale Elizabeth Ann Abram 💍 1875/1196	Bachelor Spinster	Postmaster Lady	24 18	Riverton Riverton	4 years 11 years	St. Mary's Church, Riverton	75/139	John Abraham, Father	17 February 1875	Rev. W. F. Oldham
154	8 February 1875	Denis Corkery Ann Reddy	Denis Corkery Anne Reddy 💍 1875/269	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	23 20	Riverton Riverton	8 years 8 years	Hotel, Riverton	75/140	none required (service received in Colony)	8 February 1875	Rev. Father Coleman
155	9 February 1875	Timothy Donovan Johanna Hogan	Timothy Donovan Johanna Hayan 💍 1875/277	Widower Spinster	Labourer	42 24	Riverton Riverton	12 years 11 months	Residence of Donovan	75/301	George Donovan	9 February 1875	Rev. J. Higgins
156	18 February 1875	Antonio Michel Mary Barry	Antonio Milchelle Mary Barry 💍 1875/288	Bachelor Spinster	Gold Miner	35 20	Riverton Riverton	4 years 6 months	Catholic Chapel, Riverton	75/302	none required (service received in Colony)	18 February 1875	Rev. J. Higgins

These records have been automatically transcribed and must be verified using the page image (below)

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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).