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 294

District of Wellington Quarter ending 30 September 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
178	23 August 1875	George Presswood Ellen Smith	George Presswood Ellen Smith 💍 1875/1812	Bachelor Spinster	Watchmaker	29 26	Wellington Wellington	6 months 6 months	Office of Registrar of Marriages Wellington	75/1865		23 August 1875	Registrar of Marriages Wellington
179	26 August 1875	Joseph Noble Ann Bell	Joseph Noble Ann Bell 💍 1875/1842	Bachelor Spinster	Tailor Domestic Servant	25 years 21 years	Wellington Wellington	about 20 years 21 years	House of Revd. John Muir, Molesworth Street	75/1899		26 August 1875	Revd. John Muir
180	31 August 1875	Richard Walsh Catherine Findlay	Richard Walsh Catherine Kelvie Findlay 💍 1875/1832	Bachelor Spinster	Waggoner Domestic Servant	26 23	Wellington Wellington	3 days 3 weeks	Cathedral of St. Paul's, Mulgrave Street	75/1900		31 August 1875	Revd. B. W. Harvey
181	14 September 1875	George Mills Elizabeth Souther	George Mills Elizabeth Southee 💍 1875/2120	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	29 19	Stokes Valley Stokes Valley	6 months 6 years	Wesleyan Church, The Lower Hutt	75/1864	George Souther, father	14 September 1875	Revd. John B. Richardson
182	4 September 1875	Thomas Areher Emma Turse	Thomas Archer Emma Furse 💍 1875/1845 Thomas Catley Emma Morley 💍 1875/2100	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Domestic Servant	26 23	Porirua Porirua	4 months 4 months	Registrar's Office, Wellington	75/1866		4 September 1875	Registrar of Marriages, Wellington
183	4 September 1875	James Harry Hartley the younger Harriet Welch	James Harvey Jnr Harriet Welch 💍 1875/2190	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	28 29	Miroa, Hutt The Vaita	4 days 20 days	House of William Welch, senr.	75/1865		4 September 1875	Revd. James Paterson
184	6 September 1875	William Burt Rebecca Copeland	William Burt Rebecca Copeland 💍 1875/1599	Bachelor Spinster	Storekeeper	23 21	Upper Hutt Wainuiomata	2 years 21 years	House of Mrs. Mary Copeland, Wainuiomata	75/1904		6 September 1875	Revd. John B. Richardson
185	6 September 1875	Thomas Henry Pickering Ellen Godley Dixon	Thomas Henry Kitching Ellen Dixon 💍 1875/1841	Bachelor Spinster	Printer	21 18	Wellington Wellington	7 years 18 years	House of Revd. John Muir, Woolcombe Street, Wellington	75/1896	Mary Dixon, mother	6 September 1875	Revd. John Muir

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).