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 213

District of New Plymouth 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
18	5 July 1875	James Bayly the younger Elizabeth McNeice formerly Bourne	James Bayly Elizabeth McNeice 💍 1875/1565	Bachelor Widow	Farmer Schoolmistress	23 0/12 26	Raleigh East Raleigh East	5 years 9 months	In the Raleigh West Church	75/1683		5 July 1875	the Rev Philip Walsh
19	7 July 1875	Michael Murphy Ann Bourne formerly Dunn	Michael Murphy Ann Dunn 💍 1875/3062	Bachelor Widow	Laborer	40 46	New Plymouth New Plymouth	20 years 15 years	In the Roman Catholic Chapel Devon Street New Plymouth	75/1681		7 July 1875	the Rev John Lampila
20	9 July 1875	John Blake Emily Julian	John Blake Emily Julian 💍 1875/1787	Bachelor Spinster	Charcoal burner	28 24	Karu Oakura Dist	1 year 7 months	In the Omata Village Church	75/1965		9 July 1875	the Rev Henry Handley Brown
21	9 July 1875	Thomas Cook Maria Ann Garrick	Thomas Cook Maria Anne Garrick 💍 1875/1688	Widower Spinster	Publican	48 21	Nua District Nua District	8 years 3 months	In the Bell Block Episcopal Church	75/1769		9 July 1875	the Venble Archd Govett
22	12 July 1875	James Mahoney Ellen Manning	James Mahony Ellen Monion 💍 1875/3063 James Hastings Ellen Hanson 💍 1875/1823	Bachelor Spinster	Sawyer	28 15 3/12	Inglewood Inglewood	6 months 9 months	In the Roman Catholic Chapel Devon Street New Plymouth	75/1682	Daniel Manning the Father	12 July 1875	the Rev John Lampila
23	13 July 1875	Charles Gordon Ralph Gore Laura Annie Cleghorn	Charles Gordon Ralph Gore Laura Annie Cleghorn 💍 1875/1467	Bachelor Spinster	HM Customs Landing Waiter	25 23	New Plymouth Epsom near Auckland	4 months 18 years	St Andrews Church Epsom Province of Auckland	75/1641		13 July 1875	the Rev Arthur Guyon Purchase
24	17 July 1875	Peter Eva Elizabeth Sole	Peter Eva Elizabeth Sole 💍 1875/1689	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer Daughter of David Sole Farmer	24 6/12 18 7/12	New Plymouth Tukapa near New Plymouth	15 years 18 years	In the Hurdon Chapel near New Plymouth	75/1768	David Sole the Father	17 July 1875	The Rev John Gumbell
25	26 July 1875	Simeon Nowell Mary Ann Scudder	Simeon Howell Mary Ann Scudder 💍 1875/1583	Bachelor Spinster	Shopman	25 22	New Plymouth New Plymouth	1 month 6 days	The Wesleyan Chapel New Plymouth	75/1684		26 July 1875	The Rev William York
26	27 July 1875	Johann Christian Goller Anna Scheibler	Johann Christian Goller Anna Scheililen 💍 1875/1690	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	29 21 9/12	New Plymouth New Plymouth	5 months 5 months	In the Primitive Methodist Chapel New Plymouth	75/1769		27 July 1875	The Rev John Gumbell

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).