Intentions to Marry, 1878

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840390, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Luke at Archives NZ Wellington, March 5 2025

Page 273

District of Cambridge Quarter ending 30 September 1878

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
47	1 July 1878	James Meush Jane Troth	James McNeish Jane Castle 💍 1878/1417	Bachelor Spinster	Billiard Maker Domestic Servant	24 20	Cambridge Cambridge	5 years 2 years	St Andrews Church, Cambridge	78/705	No one resident to do	1 July 1878	Rev. W. N. de L. Willis, CofE
48	3 July 1878	John Boyd Sophia Heaslip	John Boyd Sophia Heaslip 💍 1878/1782	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter [illegible]	29 18	Cambridge Cambridge	16 months 12 years	St Andrews Church, Cambridge	78/704	Benj. Heaslip, Father	3 July 1878	Rev. W. N. de L. Willis, CofE
49	4 July 1878	John Mullins Elizabeth Knox	John Mullins Elizabeth Knox 💍 1878/1781	Bachelor Spinster	Groom [illegible]	30 22	Hamilton Newcastle	3 years 13 years	Episcopalian Church, Newcastle	78/703		6 July 1878	Rev. W. Calder, CofE
50	11 July 1878	Denis Ritchie Eliza Hogan	Denis Ritchie Honora Hogan 💍 1878/1778	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer [illegible]	21 26	Cambridge Cambridge	7 months 7 months	Roman Catholic Church, Cambridge	78/708		11 July 1878	Rev. J. Golden, RC
51	15 July 1878	William Bolton Ann Whyte	William Bolton Anne White 💍 1878/1779	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer [illegible]	23 20	Hamilton Hamilton	2 years 2 years	Roman Catholic Church, Hamilton	78/707		15 July 1878	Rev. J. Golden, RC
52	22 July 1878	Thomas O'Brien Rose Gray	Thomas O'Brien Rose A Gray 💍 1878/1780	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer [illegible]	21 21	Cambridge Hamilton	6 months 6 months	Roman Catholic Church, Hamilton	78/702		22 July 1878	Rev. J. Golden, RC
53	14 August 1878	Thomas Goodman Sandes Isabel McGlashan	Thomas Goodman Sankes Isabel McGlachan 💍 1878/2341	Bachelor Spinster	Surveyor [illegible]	32 21	Hamilton Waitoa	2 years 18 months	Episcopalian Church, Hamilton	78/2357		17 August 1878	Rev. W. Calder, CofE
54	10 September 1878	John Le Seuer Agnes Thompson	John Tait Agnes Thompson 💍 1878/3315	Bachelor Spinster	Sawyer [illegible]	35 15	Whatawhata Hamilton	2 years 2 years	The House of W. G. Thompson, Father		Consent not yet given	15 September 1878
55	13 September 1878	James Black Fanny Rogers	James Black Fanny Rogers 💍 1878/1413	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk [illegible]	35 19	Hamilton Hamilton	3 years 3 years	The House of W. H. Rogers, Father	78/339	Henry Rogers, Father	13 September 1878	Rev. H. J. Lewis, Congre

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).