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 291

District of Wellington 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
154	23 July 1875	Andrew Bruce Lucy Ann Brown	Andrew Bruce Lucy Ann Brown 💍 1875/1827	Bachelor Spinster	Mariner	41 45	Port Wellington Wellington	1 day 12 months	St Paul's Cathedral, Mulgrave Street, Wellington	75/1906		23 July 1875	Revd B. W. Harvey
155	23 July 1875	Frederick William Wilkinson Sylvra Aston	Frederick William Wilkinson Sylvia Aston 💍 1875/1575	Bachelor Spinster	Baker	23 24	Wellington Wellington	12 months Many years	Primitive Methodist Chapel, Sydney Street, Wellington	75/1901		23 July 1875	Revd Robert Ward
156	26 July 1875	Frederick Boyd Louisa Henry Morton	Frederick Boyd Louisa Mary Morton 💍 1875/1577	Bachelor Spinster	Shoemaker Domestic Servant	22 22	Wellington Buller	14 years 18 months	Primitive Methodist Chapel, Sydney Street, Wellington	75/1902		26 July 1875	Revd Robert Ward
157	27 July 1875	Frederick Ottaway Elizabeth Luke	Frederick Ottaway Elizabeth Puke 💍 1875/1822	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer Domestic Servant	25 17	Pahautanui Pahautanui	18 months 4 months	Registrars Office (Altered)	75/1901	28 July 1875, Toledo Solicitor	28 July 1875	Revd Thos. Fau Court
158	28 July 1875	Joseph Saul Mary Ann Partridge formerly Hands	Joseph Saul Mary Ann Partridge 💍 1875/1840	Bachelor Widow	Labourer	28 years 28	The Lower Hutt The Lower Hutt	10 years 2 years	House of Revd John Moir, Woolcombe Street, Wellington	75/1895		28 July 1875	Revd John Moir
159	29 July 1875	Alfred Amos Woolley Emma Louisa Frances More	Alfred Amos Wooller Emma Louisa Frances Hore 💍 1875/1953	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Domestic Servant	20 20	Karori Karori	11 months 2 months	Church of England, Karori	75/2058	Declaration of no persons objecting	29 July 1875	Revd Wm Ballackey
160	30 July 1875	John Johnson Elizabeth Bunkell formerly Hockley	John Johnson Elizabeth Ann Bunkell 💍 1875/1569	Bachelor Widow	Sailor Domestic Servant	21 30	Wellington Wellington	2 days 2 months	House of Archibald Johnson, Thompson Street, Willis Street	75/1695		30 July 1875	Revd William Morley
161	4 August 1875	Vincent Christopher Ransom Mary Ann Knight	Vincent Christopherson Ransom Mary Ann Knight 💍 1875/1579	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	23 22	Lower Hutt Lower Hutt	22 years 22 years	House of Mr James Knight, The Lower Hutt	75/1904		4 August 1875	Revd John B. Richardson

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).