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 301

District of Wellington 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
219	14 October 1875	Francis Burchett Maria Ann Alives		Widower Spinster	Setter Housekeeper	60 54	Wellington Wellington	33 years About 3 years	House of Joseph Stevenson, Tasman Street	75/2619		14 October 1875	Rev. J. Mead
220	14 October 1875	Michael Green Jane Elizabeth Harris	Michael Green Jane Elizabeth Harris 💍 1875/2239	Bachelor Spinster	Brickmaker Domestic Servant	22 20	Wellington Wellington	2 years 20 years	St Paul's Cathedral, Mulgrave Street	75/2302	William Harris, Father	14 October 1875	Rev. B. W. Harvey
221	19 October 1875	Charles Houchew Selina Wheeler formerly Kebblewhite	Charles Houchen Selina Wheeler 💍 1875/2449	Bachelor Widow	Tailor Seamstress	27 43	Wellington Wellington	18 months 18 months	Registrar's Office, Wellington	75/2630		19 October 1875	Registrar of Marriages, Wellington
222	20 October 1875	Haes August Manson Louisa Jane Bratty	Claes August Manson Louisa Jane Crotty 💍 1875/2233	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Domestic Servant	21 18	Horokiwi Road Horokiwi Road	2 years 9/12 1 week	House of Alfred Clarke, Horokiwi Road	75/2315	No one in Colony	20 October 1875	Rev. J. B. Richardson
223	21 October 1875	Alfred de Vire Norah Heley	Alfred de Vere Norah Healy 💍 1875/2142	Bachelor Spinster	Grocer	30 24	Wellington of NSW but now Wellington	1 month 1 day	Roman Catholic Church, Te Aro, Wellington	75/2273		21 October 1875	Rev. J. P. O'Malley
224	21 October 1875	William Retford Mary Jane Depoly formerly Pearson	William Petford Mary Jane Hensley 💍 1875/2151 William Dix Mary Jane Kennell 💍 1875/2979 William Palmer Mary Jane Arthur 💍 1875/1724 William Nicholls Mary Jane Ginnell 💍 1875/3196	Widower Widow	Storekeeper Housekeeper	37 28	Wellington Wellington	14 years 2 years	Residence of Rev. O. S. Offg., Woolcombe Street, Wellington	75/2294		21 October 1875	Rev. O. S. Offg.
225	21 October 1875	Stephen Wood Ellen Bell	Stephen Wood Helen Bell 💍 1875/2123	Bachelor Spinster	Blacksmith Domestic Servant	29 21	Wellington Kaiwarra	12 months About 7 years	House of Duncan Bell, Kaiwarra	75/2278		21 October 1875	Rev. J. Paterson
226	22 October 1875	Thomas Edwards Philadelphia Beuge	Thomas Edwards Philadelphia Benge 💍 1875/2460	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	23 21	Tauherenikau Tauherenikau	23 years 1 week	Registrar's Office, Wellington	75/2631		22 October 1875	Registrar of Marriages, Wellington

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).