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 507

District of Hokitika 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
667	6 October 1875	Edmond Fraser Catherine Courtney	Edmond Fraser Catharine Courtney 💍 1875/2651	Bachelor Spinster	Mariner	34 years 18 years	Hokitika Hokitika	12 months Six years	In the private residence of John Courtney	75/2848	John Courtney, The father of Catherine Courtney	6 October 1875	Revd. P. A. Martin
668	11 October 1875	John James Clarke Sophia Priscilla Rohloff	John James Clarke Malvina Sophia Fredericka Rohloff 💍 1875/2565	Bachelor Spinster	Miner Housemaid	29 years 18 years	Hokitika Hokitika	3 days 5 days	In the church of England	75/2846	Charles Rohloff, The father of Sophia Priscilla Rohloff	11 October 1875	Revd. Archd. H. Harper
669	2 November 1875	George Henry Acheson Fanny Ellis	George Henry Acheson Fanny Ellis 💍 1875/2486	Widower Spinster	Medical Practitioner No occupation	42 years 35 years	Hokitika Hokitika	3 days 3 days	In the office of The Registrar of Births Deaths & Marriages Hokitika	75/2695		2 November 1875	The Registrar, H. T. Dermott
670	3 November 1875	James Herring Mary Ann Grewage	James Herring Mary Ann Greengs 💍 1875/2566	Bachelor Spinster	Miner Genl. Servant	36 years 19 years	Hokitika Hokitika	1 week 7 years & over	Church of England	75/287	Elizabeth Gray, The mother of Mary Ann Grewage	3 November 1875	Revd. H. B. Gilbert
671	28 November 1875	Francis Curry Jane McAllister	Francis Curry Jane McAllister 💍 1875/2487	Bachelor Spinster	Butcher Housemaid	33 years 27 years	Hokitika Hokitika	9 years 6 years	In the office of The Registrar	75/2646		28 November 1875	The Registrar, H. T. Dermott
672	16 December 1875	Alexander Meharry Lucy Jane Harcourt	Alexander Maharry Lucy Jane Harcourt 💍 1875/2567	Bachelor Spinster	Miner No occupation	21 years 18 years	Arahura Arahura	2 years 9 years	In the private Residence of Mr. W. McKenzie Harcourt, Upper Cropping Arahura	75/288	William McKenzie Harcourt, The father of Lucy Jane Harcourt	16 December 1875	Revd. Mr. Pascoe
673	16 December 1875	William Shardlow Brentnall Emily Annie Barthew	William Shardlaw Brentrall Emily Annie Carthew 💍 1875/2568	Bachelor Spinster	Surveyor No occupation	36 years 26 years	Hokitika Hokitika	6 years 18 months	In the private Residence of Mrs. Blackburn Bealy St, Hokitika	75/289		16 December 1875	Revd. H. B. Gilbert
674	8 July 1875	Michael Blaney Mary Giffney	Michael Clancy Mary Giffney 💍 1875/2101	Bachelor Spinster	Miner No occupation	31 years 18 years	Hokitika Waimen	Six days 7 days	In St. Michaels Church	75/290	Peter Giffney of Marsden, Father of Mary Giffney	8 July 1875	Revd. Mr. Chareyre

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).