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 306

District of Wellington Quarter ending 31 December 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
259	6 December 1875	Joseph Thomas Ralph Christina Hannah Lodge	Joseph Thomas Rash Christina Hannah Elizabeth Lodge 💍 1875/2234	Bachelor Spinster	Watermaker	22 18	Wellington Wellington	22 years 3 weeks	Wesleyan Church, Lower Hutt	75/2316	Mary Ann Lodge, Mother	6 December 1875	Rev. J. B. Richardson
260	6 December 1875	William Evans Mary Jane McGaughey	William Evans Mary Jane McGoughey 💍 1875/2144	Bachelor Spinster	Butcher Domestic Servant	37 years 20 years	Wellington Wellington	5 months 13 months	Roman Catholic Cathedral, Hill Street	75/2624	No one in Colony	6 December 1875	Rev. Father Petit Jean
261	9 December 1875	Francis Mahoney Jane Sheridan	Francis Mahoney Jane Sheridan 💍 1875/2590	Bachelor Spinster	General dealer Domestic Servant	34 36	Wellington Wellington	5 months 4 months	Roman Catholic Church, Boulcott Street	75/2624		9 December 1875	Very Rev. J. P. O'Reilly
262	10 December 1875	Frederick William Browne Jane Lane	Frederick Browne Jane Lane 💍 1875/2235	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter Domestic Servant	22 years 22 years	Lower Hutt Lower Hutt	2 years 18 months	House of Joseph Browne, Lower Hutt	75/2317		10 December 1875	Rev. J. B. Richardson
263	11 December 1875	Owen Henry Osborne Harriet Robinson	Owen Henry Osborne Harriet Robinson 💍 1875/2976	Widower Spinster	Railway Porter Domestic Servant	41 years 25 years	Kaiwarra Wellington	4 months 12 months	House of Revd. H. N. West, Molesworth Street	75/2890		11 December 1875	Revd. H. N. West
264	11 December 1875	Thomas Collins Emily Mayhew	Thomas Collins Emily Mayhew 💍 1875/2327	Bachelor Spinster	Grocer Shopwoman	27 years 27 years	Wellington Wellington	4 1/2 years 12 months	House of Revd. W. Morley, The Terrace	75/2435		24 December 1875	Revd. Wm Morley
265	13 December 1875	James John Hygar Jessie Ann Johnson	James John Flyger Jessie Ann Johnson 💍 1875/2125	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter Dressmaker	25 years 19 years	Wellington Wellington	10 years 19 years	Primitive Methodist Church, Cuba Street	75/2280	Arthur Johnson, Father	13 December 1875	Revd. Noah Ward
266	13 December 1875	John Williamson Annie Wright formerly Worton	John Williamson Annie Wright 💍 1876/480 John Williams Caroline Wright 💍 1875/1500	Bachelor Widow	Engine Driver	22 years 26 years	Wanganui Wellington	2 months 2 months	St. Peter's Church, Te Aro, Wellington	75/2330		13 December 1875	Revd. Archer Stocks

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 1899. More registers are being added almost every week.

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).