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 305

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
251	24 November 1875	Thomas Perkins Kate Pagaw	Thomas Perkins Kate Ragan 💍 1875/2136	Bachelor Spinster	Cook Domestic Servant	32 yrs 25 yrs	Wellington Wellington	3 days 3 days	Roman Catholic Cathedral	75/2290		24 November 1875	Father Peter Leow
252	24 November 1875	Edmund Lewis Mary Bennersby	Edmund Lewis Mary Bermersley 💍 1875/2470	Widower Spinster	Cooper	50 yrs 40 yrs	Wellington Wellington	18 yrs 18 yrs	The Registrar's Office Wellington	75/2295		24 November 1875	Registrar of Marriages Wellington
253	25 November 1875	George Murray Winks Christina Cruickshanks	George Murray Wink Christina Cruickshank 💍 1875/3125	Bachelor Spinster	Civil Engineer	29 18	Upper Hutt Upper Hutt	2 yrs 18 yrs	House of James Gray Cruickshanks Upper Hutt	75/2310	J. G. Cruickshanks, father	25 November 1875	Rev. C. S. H. Nicholls
254	25 November 1875	Charles James Ellison Mary Ann Duck	Charles James Ellison Mary Ann Duck 💍 1875/2349	Bachelor Spinster	Shoemaker	24 19	Wellington Wellington	19 yrs 19 yrs	House of John Duck Cuba Street	75/2333	John Duck, father	27 November 1875	Rev. Wm. Morley
255	29 November 1875	John Partnidge Lucy Ann Trott		Bachelor Spinster	Express Driver Domestic Servant	24 30	Wellington Wellington	45/2 yrs 14 months	St. Paul's Cathedral Thorndon	75/2304		29 November 1875	Rev. B. W. Harvey
256	1 December 1875	Robert Henry Street Mary Harris Harrison	Robert Henry Stewart Mary Harrison 💍 1875/2560	Bachelor Spinster	Saw Mill Proprietor	30 21	of Karori but now Wellington Wellington	3 days 18 yrs	House of Mrs. Elizabeth Harris Thorndon Quay	75/2482		1 December 1875	Rev. J. Paterson
257	3 December 1875	John James Smith Caroline Chamberlain	John James Smith Caroline Chamberlain 💍 1875/2586	Widower Spinster	Labourer Domestic Servant	32 21	Wellington Wellington	12 yrs 4 years	House of Revd. John Knox The Terrace	75/2623		3 December 1875	Rev. John Knox
258	6 December 1875	John Purcell Mary Flaherty	John Purcell Mary Flaherty 💍 1875/2589	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Domestic Servant	34 yrs 32 yrs	Wellington Wellington	2 months 6 months	Roman Catholic Church Boulcott Street	75/2626		6 December 1875	Very Revd. J. J. P. O'Reilly

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).