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 426

District of Nelson Quarter ending 31 December 1875

No	Date of Notice	Names and Surnames of Parties	Condition	Calling or Profession	Age	Dwelling Place	Length of Residence	Marriage Place	Folio	Consent	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
82	17 December 1875	Jessup John Lock Harriet	Bachelor Widow	Mariner NIL	50 32	Washington road Nelson Washington road Nelson	2 years 18 months	At the Presbyterian Church Nelson	75/2933		23 December 1875	Rev² Patrick Calder
83	20 December 1875	Clark Samuel Stephen Chapman Jane	Bachelor Spinster	Mariner Domestic Servant	32 30	Milton Street Nelson Milton Street Nelson	1 year 18 months	At the residence of said Samuel Stephen, Milton Street Nelson	75/2906		20 December 1875	Rev² Patrick Calder
84	22 December 1875	McDonald Donald Roper Emma Davis	Widower Widow	Contractor NIL	63 46	Collingwood Street Nelson Collingwood Street Nelson	14 years 14 years	At the residence of said Donald McDonald, Collingwood Street Nelson	75/2909		22 December 1875	Rev² Patrick Calder
85	23 December 1875	Cowar Henry James McDonald Catherine	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Domestic Servant	22 23	Bridge Street Nelson Grove Street Nelson	6 months 6 weeks	At the Church Nelson	75/2907		23 December 1875	Rev² Patrick Calder
86	24 December 1875	Schroder Charles John Berkett Betsy Frederick	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer NIL	24 15	Ranzau Waimea East Hope Waimea East	24 years 15 years	At the Lutheran Church Ranzau	75/398	Berkett William, Father	24 December 1875	Rev² Chr² Fried² Meyer
87	24 December 1875	Ruff Robert Henry Cave Mary Ann	Bachelor Spinster	Carter NIL	30 20	Waimea Street Nelson Waimea Street Nelson	16 years 20 years	At the residence of Elizabeth Cave, Waimea Street Nelson	75/2325	Cave Elizabeth (widow), mother	24 December 1875	Rev² William Steall
88	24 December 1875	Giblin Josiah Cave Elizabeth	Bachelor Spinster	Butcher NIL	22 18	Bridge Street Nelson Waimea Street Nelson	7 months 18 years	At the residence of Elizabeth Cave, Waimea Street Nelson	75/2326	Cave Elizabeth (widow), mother	24 December 1875	Rev² William Steall
89	28 December 1875	Humphrey Henry Mortimer Catherine	Bachelor Spinster	Bushman NIL	26 21	Waimea road Nelson Waimea road Nelson	3 days 3 days	At all Saints Church Nelson	75/2728		28 December 1875	Rev² Rich² Joshua Thorpe
90	28 December 1875	Humphrey John Humphrey Harriet	Bachelor Spinster	Wheelwright Dressmaker	21 23	Waimea road Nelson Waimea road Nelson	3 years 3 years	At all Saints Church Nelson	75/2729		28 December 1875	Rev² Rich² Joshua Thorpe
91	30 December 1875	Close William Henry Anderson Mary	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer Domestic Servant	26 21	Wakapuaka Wakapuaka	20 years 21 years	At St. Andrews Church Wakapuaka	75/390		30 December 1875	Rev² Thos Sam² Grace Junr
92	31 December 1875	Lund Henry Jensen Ryan Margaret	Bachelor Spinster	Miner Domestic Servant	35 24	Bridge Street Nelson Vanguard Street Nelson	1 week 6 weeks	At Christ Church Nelson	75/414		31 December 1875	Rev² James Leighton

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).