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 501

District of Hokitika 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
659	8 July 1875	William Paterson Bell Flora McIvor	William Paterson Bell Flora McIver 💍 1875/1719	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer Servant	41 30	Hokitika Hokitika	12 months 5 months	In the private Residence of self, Tancred St, Hokitika	75/1834		8 July 1875	Rev. James Kirkland
660	19 July 1875	Peter Doonan Margaret O'Rafferty	Peter Doonan Margaret O'Rafferty 💍 1875/1620	Bachelor Spinster	Miner no occupation	29 26	Hokitika Hokitika	4 days 4 days	In the church of St Michael, Waimea	75/1846		19 July 1875	Rev'd McIntyre
661	21 July 1875	John Russell Reid Mary Spencer Clayton	John Russell Reid Mary Spencer Clayton 💍 1875/1805	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk no occupation	24 24	Hokitika Hokitika	4 days 9 years	In the church of all Saints, Hokitika	75/1859		21 July 1875	Rev'd Arch'd H. Harper
662	31 July 1875	John Jackson Charlotte Amelia Firth	John Jackson Charlotte Amelia Firth 💍 1875/1936	Widower Spinster	Timber Merchant no occupation	54 39	Hokitika Hokitika	8 years 8 days	In my private Residence, Gibsons Quay, Hokitika	75/2040		31 July 1875	Rev'd Mr. Rishworth
663	4 August 1875	Hugh McDougall Emma Ward	Hugh McDougall Emma Ward 💍 1875/1944	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter no occupation	29 17	Hokitika Hokitika	2 months 2 months	In the private Residence of McD. McKay George, Park St. Hokitika	75/2041	Bentinck Gore Ward, The father	4 August 1875	Rev'd Mr. Rishworth
664	6 August 1875	Thomas Paterson Annie Hardie Forsyth	Thomas Paterson Annie Hardie Forsyth 💍 1875/1720	Bachelor Spinster	Coffee Merchant Milliner	23 18	Hokitika Hokitika	8 years 15 months	In the private residence of Res. Mr. Kirkland, Park St. Hokitika	75/1838	Adam Forsyth, The father of Annie Hardie Forsyth	6 August 1875	Rev. James Kirkland
665	31 August 1875	James Midgley Higgin Maria Hope Nicol	James Medgley Higgin Maria Hope Nicol 💍 1875/1711	Bachelor Spinster	Chemist	43 28	Hokitika Hokitika	9 years 2 years	In the private Residence of Capt. Turnbull, Fitzherbert St. Hokitika	75/1839		31 August 1875	Rev. James Kirkland
666	25 September 1875	John Gray Francis Mary Batchell	John Gray Frances Mary Satchell 💍 1875/1807	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer Servant	39 24	3 mile Creek Arahura 3 mile Creek Arahura	18 months 7 months	Church of England, all Saints, Hokitika	75/1860		25 September 1875	Ven'd Arch'd H. Harper

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).