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 499

District of Hokitika 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	Consent	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
648	9 April 1875	Henry Tilley Bridget Forrest	Henry Tilley Bridget Forrest 💍 1875/1035	Bachelor Spinster	Miner No occupation	44 years 24 years	Hokitika Hokitika	2 weeks 1 year upwards	In the Church of England Hokitika	75/1181		9 April 1875	Venble Archd H. Harper, C of E
649	12 April 1875	Matthews Rasmussen Jane Richardson	Mats Rasmusson Jane Richardson 💍 1875/1036	Bachelor Spinster	Miner Gen Servant	42 years 29 years	8 Mile, Woodstock Kanieri	12 months 4 days	In the Church of England District of Hokitika	75/1182		12 April 1875	Venble Archd H. Harper, C of E
650	13 April 1875	Henry Zaleck Levy Sarah Singer	Henry Zaleck Levy Sarah Singer 💍 1875/1409	Bachelor Spinster	Storekeeper No occupation	23 years 17 years	Hokitika Hokitika	10 years 8 years	In the Jewish Synagogue Hokitika	75/1534	Mr Alexander Singer, The Father	13 April 1875	Mr Alexander Singer, Actg
651	21 April 1875	Edward Mortimer Head Mary Anderson	Edward Mortimer Head Mary Anderson 💍 1875/817	Bachelor Spinster	Miner No occupation	41 years 35 years	Hokitika Hokitika	2 months 8 months	In the Private Residence of Mr & Mrs Mr Anderson at Staffordtown	75/865		21 April 1875	Rev¹ Mr Hogg, R.C.
652	27 April 1875	Edward Ferry Robinson Anne Jane Atkinson	Edward Terry Robinson Anne Jane Atkinson 💍 1875/3097	Bachelor Spinster	Provincial Treasurer Westland Minor	36 years 18 years	Hokitika Kanieri	6 months 8 years	All Saints Church Hokitika	75/1183	Mathew Atkinson, The father, of Hokitika	27 April 1875	Venble Archd H. Harper, C of E
653	17 May 1875	Thomas Russell Minnie Anderson	Thomas Russell Minnie Henderson 💍 1875/1037	Bachelor Widow	Laborer	35 years 30 years	Hokitika Hokitika	9 years 6 months	All Saints Church Hokitika	75/1184		17 May 1875	Venble Archd H. Harper, C of E
654	17 May 1875	Leopold Netter Elizabeth Isaacs	Leopold Netter Elizabeth Isaacs 💍 1875/1410	Bachelor Spinster	Upholster No occupation	36 years 23 years	Hokitika Hokitika	10 years 4 days	At the Residence of Mr H. Levy Storekeeper Hokitika	75/1535		17 May 1875	Mr Alexander Singer, Actg

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).