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 809

District of East Taieri Quarter ending 30 September 1885

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
10	06 July 1885	Hugh M'Coll Catherine Baxter	Hugh McColl Catherine Baxter 💍 1875/1905	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	26 years 21 years	Brighton Brighton	15 years 4 years	Office of Registrar East Taieri	75/1935		06 July 1885	James Waddell
11	14 July 1885	Robert Gardner Ellen Love	Robert Gardner Ellen Love 💍 1875/1901	Bachelor Spinster	Watchmaker	20 years 19 years	Saddle Hill Saddle Hill	5 days 3 years	House of Alexander Love Saddle Hill	75/1931	Alexander Love Father	15 July 1885	Rev William Will
12	22 July 1885	Charles Cornish Elizabeth McGregor	Charles Cornish Elizabeth McGregor 💍 1875/2018	Bachelor Spinster	Accountant	28 years 21 years	Dunedin Grange	3 1/2 years 2 months	House of Bishop Dunedin	75/2124		22 July 1885	Rev Father Coleman
13	10 August 1885	John Finnie Margaret Thompson	John Finnie Margaret Thompson 💍 1875/1902	Bachelor Spinster	Farm Servant Dressmaker	22 years 19 years	Hopehill Scroggs Hill	3 years 5 days	House of Robert [illegible]	75/1932	No person residing in the Colony to give consent	10 August 1885	Rev William Will
14	10 September 1885	Walter Smail Isabella Law	Walter Smail Isabella Law 💍 1875/1903	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	29 years 24 years	East Taieri Lawfield	5 years 24 years	House of John Law Lawfield	75/1933		10 September 1885	Rev William Will
15	16 September 1885	John Law Isabella Chirnside formerly Stoddart	John Law Isabella Chirnside 💍 1875/1904	Widower Widow	Settler	68 years 67 years	Lawfield East Taieri	23 years 16 years	House of Mrs Chirnside East Taieri	75/1934		16 September 1885	Rev William Will
16	19 September 1885	Peter Liston Brown Annie Rowan	Peter Liston Brown Annie Rowan 💍 1875/2162	Bachelor Spinster	Carter Weaver	34 years 26 years	Mosgiel Mosgiel	13 years 8 months	House of John Rowan Mosgiel	75/2232		19 September 1885	Rev John Sutherland
17	19 September 1885	William Christie Sinclair Elizabeth Rowan	William Christie Sinclair Elizabeth Rowan 💍 1875/2161	Bachelor Spinster	Wool Spinner Weaver	27 years 21 years	Mosgiel Mosgiel	2 years 6 months	House of John Rowan Mosgiel	75/2231		19 September 1885	Rev John Sutherland

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).