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 279

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	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
82	20 April 1875	James Eades Elizabeth Jane Langrove	James Eades Elizabeth June Trengrove 💍 1875/780	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter Tailoress	29 19	Wellington Wellington	4 months 8 months	House of James Eades, Courtenay Place	75/841	5 May 1875	Revd. John Hoare
83	21 April 1875	Hamilton James Wiley Elizabeth Kate Vernman	Hamilton James Wiley Elizabeth Kate Veenman 💍 1875/935	Bachelor Spinster	Sawyer	29 21	Wairinu-o-mata Wairinu-o-mata	about 9 months 1 week	Church of England, Hutt	75/1054	21 April 1875	Revd. Thomas Lan Couth
84	21 April 1875	William Gaskin Ellen O'Loughlin	William Gaskin Ellen O'Loughlin 💍 1875/775	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Domestic Servant	33 21	North Makara Wellington	10 years 8 months	Registrars Office, Wellington	75/836	21 April 1875	Registrar of Marriages, Wellington
85	24 April 1875	Alfred Cutter Mary Ann McCartlay	Alfred Cutler Mary Anne McCarthy 💍 1875/698 Alfred Foster Mary Ann McCory 💍 1875/2083 Alfred Stuart Mary Ann Waters 💍 1875/2845	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Domestic Servant	33 30	Wellington Wellington	10 years 12 months	St Peter's Church, Willis Street	75/775	24 April 1875	Revd. Archdeacon Stock
86	26 April 1875	George Nevill Mary Ann Haddow	George Nevill Mary Ann Haddon 💍 1875/1458	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	22 21	Karori Karori	14 days 14 days	Church of England, Karori	75/1383	26 April 1875	Revd. Wm. Ballachey
87	26 April 1875	Robert Robertson Anne Reed	Robert Robertson Annie Reid 💍 1875/1071 John Robertson Annie Lewis 💍 1875/2304	Widower Spinster	Mariner	27 22	Wellington Wellington	2 days 9 years	Congregational Chapel, Woodward Street	75/1241	26 April 1875	Revd. Wm. Henry West
88	27 April 1875	George Browne Jemima Hunter	Georges Brown Jemima Hunter 💍 1875/3094	Bachelor Spinster	Sheepfarmer	37 21	Upper Hutt Lower Hutt	15 years Many years	Roman Catholic Church, Upper Hutt	75/1033	27 April 1875	Revd. Father M. Le Coy

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).