Intentions to Marry, 1876

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840388, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Alexandra at Archives NZ Wellington, January 31 2025

A few of the pages are missing.

Page 247

District of Cambridge Quarter ending 30 September 1876

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
176	27 July 1876	Patrick McMahan Elizabeth McFarland	Patrick McMahon Elizabeth McFarland 💍 1876/1785	Bachelor Spinster	Constable C.L.I. Domestic Servant	37 21	Cambridge Cambridge	1 year 1 year	Roman Catholic Chapel, Hamilton	76/1738		27 July 1876	Revd. Jno. Golden, RG
177	31 July 1876	John Allwood Sarah Hinton	John Allwood Sarah Hinton 💍 1876/2129	Bachelor Spinster	Butcher	27 21	Hamilton Hamilton	3 years 11 years	At the House of Mr. Hinton, Hamilton	76/2227		31 July 1876	Revd. H. S. Davis, Indep
178	15 August 1876	Arthur Graham Rebecca Burn	Arthur Graham Rebecca Burn 💍 1876/1686	Bachelor Spinster	Bootmaker Domestic Servant	24 26	Cambridge Cambridge	4 months 2 years	At the house of Mrs. Graham, Cambridge	76/1735		15 August 1876	Revd. Jno. Smith, Wes
179	21 August 1876	Edward Hewett Elizabeth Melville	Edward Hewitt Eliza Melville 💍 1876/1767	Bachelor Spinster	Hotel Keeper	40 21	Cambridge Cambridge	4 years 2 years	St. Andrews Church, Cambridge	76/1736		21 August 1876	Revd. Wm. Calder, CofE
180	22 August 1876	Samuel McLernon Mary Jane Somers	Samuel McLenan Mary Jane Somers 💍 1876/2124	Bachelor Spinster	Watchmaker	22 19	Hamilton Auckland	6 months 18 months	The House of Mrs. Ellen Somers, Franklyn [illegible]	76/2240	Mrs Ellen Somers, mother	22 August 1876	Revd. R. F. Macnicol, Auckland
181	26 August 1876	George Edwin Hinton Sarah Turner	George Edward Hinton Sarah Turner 💍 1876/1778	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Domestic Servant	33 25	Matamata Matamata	6 months 6 weeks	St. Peters Church, Hamilton	76/1734		26 August 1876	Revd. Wm. Calder, CofE
182	14 September 1876	Martin Fitzgerald Margaret Power	Martin Fitzgerald Margaret Power 💍 1876/1786	Bachelor Spinster	Settler Domestic Servant	30 23	Hamilton Hamilton	10 years 8 months	The House of Mr. Stokes, Hamilton	76/1739		14 September 1876	Revd. Jno. Golden, RG
183	20 September 1876	William James Rist Harriett Phoebe Uzzell	William James Rist Harriet Phoebe Uzzell 💍 1876/2136	Bachelor Spinster	Constable, A.C.F.	27 19	Hamilton Hamilton	4 years 12 years	The House of Mrs. Uzzell, Hamilton	76/2228	James Uzzell, Father	20 September 1876	Revd. H. S. Davis, Indep

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).