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 545

District of Kawapoi 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
350	23 July 1875	William Couper Martha Giles	William Carpenter Martha Giles 💍 1875/2397	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	28 22	Kawapoi Island Kawapoi Island	6 years 20 years	At the Chapel of Ease	75/2333		23 July 1875	Revd. J. Stack
351	24 July 1875	John Palmer Sarah Store	John Palmer Sarah Storer 💍 1875/2396	Bachelor Spinster	Farm Labourer	25 20	Kawapoi Island Kawapoi Island	14 years 14 years	At the Parish Church at Kawapoi	75/2332	Edward Store, father	24 July 1875	Revd. H. E. Carlyon
352	5 August 1875	William Onley Elizabeth Collins	William McIlroy Elizabeth Collins 💍 1875/1629 William Reed Jane Collins 💍 1876/1092	Bachelor Spinster	Storeman Servant	25 25	Kawapoi Leeston	3 weeks 3 weeks	At the Residence of Mr. H. Palmer, Leeston	75/1755		5 August 1875	Revd. J. W. Cree
353	13 August 1875	Samuel Stone Maria Thumper	Samuel Stone Maria Trumper 💍 1875/1634	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	33 24	Woodend Woodend	13 years 12 years	At the Wesleyan Chapel at Kawapoi	75/1734		13 August 1875	Revd. W. H. Beck
354	18 August 1875	William Edmond Immerson Elizabeth Jane Walker	William Hollern Elizabeth Jane Dale 💍 1875/541 William Edmonds Knight Elizabeth Jane Hoskin 💍 1875/1635 William Andrews Elizabeth Jane Ayton 💍 1875/1503	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Servant	20 18	Kawapoi Kawapoi	5 years 13 years	At the Wesleyan Chapel at Kawapoi	75/1738	Thomas Wright, father; John Walker, father	18 August 1875	Revd. W. H. Beck
355	21 September 1875	James Simmonds Annie Amy Sarah Poole	James Simmonds Annie Amy Sarah Posher 💍 1875/1636	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Servant	25 24	Kawapoi Kawapoi	1 year 6 months	At the Registrar's Office at Kawapoi	75/1739		21 September 1875	Charles Dudley

These records have been automatically transcribed and must be verified using the page image (below)

100% Contrast

100% Brightness

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).