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 231

District of Wanganui 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
34	13 July 1875	George William Campbell Jessie Duncan Hall	George William Campbell Jessie Duncan Watt 💍 1875/2107	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	25 years 20 years	Brunswick Station Brunswick	22 years 20 years	Otaki Bank Farm	75/2261	Margaret Hall, mother	13 July 1875	John Elmley
35	28 July 1875	Guybon John Chambers Ellen Noble	Guyton John Chambers Ellen Noble 💍 1875/1695	Bachelor Spinster	Station Manager	25 years 27 years	Wanganui Wanganui	3 days 6 months	In the English Church, Wanganui	75/1694		28 July 1875	F. L. Tudor
36	30 July 1875	William Addison Harriet Rowland	William Addison Harriet Rowland 💍 1875/1675	Bachelor Spinster	Waiter	26 years 22 years	Wanganui Wanganui	2 years 6 months 9 months	In the Registrar's Office, Wanganui	75/1698		30 July 1875	Registrar
37	4 August 1875	Alfred Burnett Euphemia Anderson	Alfred Burnett Euphemia Anderson 💍 1875/2108	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	23 years 21 years	CP2 Line CP3 Line	6 years many years	At the private house of Mr. T. Anderson, Preston Line	75/2262		4 August 1875	John Elmley
38	7 August 1875	George Byers Elizabeth Hoff	George Buyers Elizabeth Hogg 💍 1875/2110 George Lyes Elizabeth Watts 💍 1875/923 George Lambert Elizabeth Ford 💍 1875/2185 George Glen Elizabeth Grey 💍 1875/863 George Mills Elizabeth Southee 💍 1875/2120 George Clark Elizabeth Aitken 💍 1876/587 George Wills Elizabeth Gorstage 💍 1875/1294 George Day Elizabeth Wilson 💍 1875/2574	Bachelor Spinster	Shoemaker	25 years 26 years	Wanganui Wanganui	1 year 2 years	At the residence of Mr. Hoff, Wanganui	75/2264		7 August 1875	John Elmley
39	11 August 1875	John Brough Elizabeth Travers	John Brough Elizabeth Wallace 💍 1875/1576	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	29 years 20 years	Wanganui Wanganui	6 months 20 years	At the Catholic Chapel, Wanganui	75/1684	Mary McTavish, mother	11 August 1875	Father Petit
40	11 August 1875	Richard Spry Elizabeth Drummond	Richard Spry Elizabeth Drummond 💍 1875/2109	Bachelor Spinster	Constable of Police	24 years 25 years	Wanganui Wanganui	2 months 3 days	In the private home of Mr. Whitcombe, Wanganui	75/2263		11 August 1875	J. Elmley
41	11 August 1875	Edward James Whiting Anne Liston	Edward James Whiting Annie Lester 💍 1875/1587	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	33 years 19 years	Wanganui Wanganui	5 months 19 years	In the private home of Mr. Liston	75/1691	William Liston, father	11 August 1875	Mr. Baren

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).