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 640

District of Timaru 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
437	26 February 1875	James Smithson Janet Cockran	James Smithson Janet Cochran 💍 1875/477	Widower Spinster	Carpenter Servant	46 30	Timaru Timaru	7 weeks 7 weeks	Timaru Hotel at Timaru	75/1220		26 February 1875	Rev. Josiah Ward Timaru
438	1 March 1875	James Cain Kate Harvest	James Cain Kate Harvest 💍 1875/498	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	35 25	Timaru Timaru	6 days 2 months	Office of Registrar of Marriages Timaru	75/578		1 March 1875	Registrar of Marriages Timaru
439	15 March 1875	Charles Henry Churchell Annie Frazer	Charles Henry Churchill Annie Frazer 💍 1875/499	Bachelor Spinster	Stone Mason Cook	29 24	Pareora Station Pareora Station	6 weeks 9 months	Office of Registrar of Marriages Timaru	75/579		15 March 1875	Registrar of Marriages Timaru
440	16 March 1875	Francis Connell Hannah Butler	Francis Connell Hannah Butler 💍 1875/283	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer Servant	32 23	Levels Plains Levels Plains	4 years 4 months	Catholic Chapel Timaru	75/314		16 March 1875	Rev. Jean Baptiste Chataigner Timaru
441	19 March 1875	John Hillary Emma Martha Sarchet	John Hillary Emma Martha Sarchel 💍 1875/98	Bachelor Spinster	Plasterer	31 40	Timaru Timaru	1 year 3 years	Wesleyan Chapel Timaru	75/154		19 March 1875	Rev. William Lee Timaru
442	27 March 1875	Arthur Gabites Margaret Bragg	Arthur Gabites Margaret Brags 💍 1875/227	Bachelor Spinster	Draper Governess	31 23	Timaru Timuka	3 years 6 months	St. Saviour's Church Timuka	75/250		27 March 1875	Rev. James Preston Timuka
443	30 March 1875	William Mitchell Lucy Smith	William Mitchell Lucy Smith 💍 1875/478 William Kearns Mary Smith 💍 1876/489	Bachelor Spinster	Engineer	30 20	Timaru Timaru	10 months 4 years	Residence of William Collins Timaru	75/521	Declaration made 30th March by the person in the Colony to give Consent	30 March 1875	Rev. Josiah Ward Timaru

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

100% Contrast

100% Brightness

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).