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 157

District of Thames 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
596	23 November 1875	Joseph Dames Agnes Jackson the younger	Joseph Downes Agnes Jackson 💍 1875/2503	Bachelor Widow	Miner domestic	35 years 5 years	Thames Thames	5 years 5 years	In the office of the Registrar of Marriages Auckland district	75/2694		23 November 1875	E. H. Power
597	23 November 1875	Richard Stapleton Ellen Bowring	Richard Stapleton Ellen Conroy 💍 1875/2628	Bachelor Spinster	Artificer domestic	30 years 22 years	Thames Thames	3 years 3 years	St Francis RC Church	75/2825		23 November 1875	Revd J. Mahoney
598	30 November 1875	James Collins Maria Curtis	James Colby Mary Curtis 💍 1875/2629	Bachelor Spinster	Bushman domestic	36 years 16 years	Tararu Waiotahi	5 years 1 year	St Francis RC Church	75/2826	Alexander Johnson, Guardian	30 November 1875	Revd J. Mahoney
599	4 December 1875	William Gribble Elizabeth Curry	William Gribble Elizabeth Lucy Dunn 💍 1875/2902	Bachelor Spinster	Miner domestic	25 years 20 years	Moanatairi Waitangirina	4 years 3 years	In the dwelling house occupied by William Dyune Sandish Point	75/2863	William Dyune, Father	4 December 1875	Revd J. Lush
600	6 December 1875	Edward Jennings Mary Hindman	Edward Jennings Mary Hindman 💍 1875/2645	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter domestic	29 years 20 years	Parawai Thames	1 year 1 year	In the dwelling house occupied by Samuel Hindman Jennings Parawai	75/2864	Samuel Hindman, Father	6 December 1875	Revd Josiah Winton
601	13 December 1875	Charles Prisk Eliza Leighton	Charles Whisker Eliza Leighton 💍 1875/2901	Bachelor Spinster	Miner Miner	30 years 19 years	Thames Tararu	8 years 8 years	In the Building occupied by Mr Asthill School house Tararu	75/2882	Eliza Owston, mother	13 December 1875	Revd J. Lush
602	15 December 1875	Frederick James Burgess Georgina Sarah Jane Boon	Fred Jas Burgess Georgina Sarah Jane Boon 💍 1875/2627	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk Clerk	24 years 22 years	Hape Hape	3 years 3 years	In the dwelling house occupied by Robert Boon Miller Bucken Hape Road Thames	75/2824		22 December 1875	Revd John Crump

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).