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 422

District of Nelson Quarter ending 30 June 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
43	9 June 1875	Ross Dan Bartrum Hannah	Bachelor Spinster	Baker NIL	35 26	Waimea Street Nelson Tasman Street Nelson	9 months 2 months	at the residence of said Hannah Bartrum Tasman Street Nelson	75/1176		9 June 1875	Revd Thomas Buddle
44	10 June 1875	Burn Daniel Augarde Therese	Bachelor Spinster	Tinsmith NIL	26 22	Grove Street Nelson Nile Street East Nelson	2 years 22 years	at Christ Church Nelson	75/2064		10 June 1875	Revd James Leighton
45	18 June 1875	Finney Edward Graham Marion	Bachelor Spinster	Printer NIL	24 22	Collingwood Street Nelson Wakefield Quay Nelson	10 years 22 years	at the Presbyterian Church Nelson	75/1316		18 June 1875	Revd Patrick Calder
46	21 June 1875	Riley Samuel James Dale Annie	Bachelor Spinster	Master Mariner NIL	33 20	Hardy Street Nelson Harley Street Nelson	1 week 1 month	at All Saints Church Nelson	75/1374	Declaration no person in N Z having authority to consent	21 June 1875	Revd Richd Joshua Thorpe
47	24 June 1875	Saywell John Sheat Emma	Bachelor Spinster	Storekeeper NIL	29 23	Richmond Waimea East Richmond Waimea East	4 days 23 years	at the residence of John Sheat Farmer Waimea East	75/1986		24 June 1875	Revd William Steall
48	26 June 1875	Barrett John Forfar Margaret	Bachelor Spinster	Painter Domestic Servant	25 22	Collingwood Street Nelson Selwyn Place Nelson	2 years 19 years	at St. Mary's Catholic Church Nelson	75/1588		26 June 1875	Revd Antoine marie Garin
49	28 June 1875	Allen Henry Jacobsen Dora	Widower Widow	Sawyer NIL	57 54	St Vincent Street Nelson St Vincent Street Nelson	3 days 5 years	at the residence of Henry Allen Sawyer St Vincent Street Nelson	75/1432		28 June 1875	Revd Christian Friederich Meyer
50	30 June 1875	Strong Samuel Herbers Johnson Mary	Bachelor Spinster	Gentleman NIL	26 31	Van Dieman Street Nelson Van Dieman Street Nelson	6 weeks 18 months	At All Saints Church Nelson	75/1345		30 June 1875	The Rt Revd The Bp: of Nelson

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).