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 286

District of Wellington Quarter ending 30 June 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
129	15 June 1875	John George Esther Mary Welmshurst	John George Eglinton Esther Mary Wilmshurst 💍 1875/756	Bachelor Spinster	Settler	37 19	Ngahauranga Johnsonville	12 months 15 years	House of Eli Buckle, Boulcott Street	75/832	Eli Buckle, father	15 June 1875	Rev. Wm. Shirley
130	17 June 1875	William Taylor Catherine Galloway	William Taylor Catherine Fallany 💍 1875/2091 William Taylor Jane Beek 💍 1876/147	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	25 20	Pahautanui Pahautanui	13 years	Trinity Church of England, Johnsonville	75/1022	David Galloway, father	17 June 1875	Rev. S. A. Newth
131	18 June 1875	Samuel Wiley Mary Ann Pobgee	Daniel Wiley Mary Ann Pobgee 💍 1875/779	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Domestic Servant	37 34	Ohariu Valley Lower Hutt	8 months	Registrar's Office, Wellington	75/840		18 June 1875	Registrar of Marriages, Wellington
132	21 June 1875	Charles Cowan Mary Jane Russell	Charles Cowan Mary Jane Russell 💍 1875/1567	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk Domestic Servant	30 17	Wellington Wellington	12 months about 1 year	Wesleyan Church, Manners Street	75/1693	John Russell, father	22 June 1875	Rev. Wm. Morley
133	23 June 1875	John James Boyd Ann Elizabeth Barker	John James Boyd Ann Elizabeth Barker 💍 1875/1568	Bachelor Spinster	Ship's Carpenter Domestic Servant	23 18	Wellington Wellington	3 weeks 1 month	House of Harry Pitchard, Taranaki Street		Harry Pitchard, [illegible]	23 June 1875
134	23 June 1875	Harry Cheesman Stuart Ellen Hepbrow		Widower Spinster	Upholsterer Dressmaker	30 24	Wellington Wellington	4 months 4 months	St. Paul's Cathedral, Thorndon	75/1905		24 June 1875	Rev. B. Harvey
135	28 June 1875	Henry Boardman Ellen Cook	Henry Boardman Ellen Cook 💍 1875/705	Bachelor Spinster	Cook	31 30	Wellington Wellington	4 years 3 years	St. Peter's Church	75/881		28 June 1875	Rev. Archdeacon Stock

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).