Intentions to Marry, 1879

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840391, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Luke at Archives NZ Wellington, April 30 2025

Page 289

District of New Plymouth Quarter ending 30 September 1879

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
37	18 August 1879	Herbert Bloomer Curtis Karolina Jörgensen Larsen	Herbert Bloome Curtis Karolina Jorgensen Larsen 💍 1879/1792	Bachelor Spinster	Storekeeper	27 19	Inglewood Huirangi	5 years 5 years	Residence of Jörgen Larsen Huirangi	79/1802	Jörgen Larsen, Father	18 August 1879	Revd. David McNicoll
38	23 August 1879	James Williamson Susan French	James Williamson Susan French 💍 1879/1793	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	21 21	Inglewood German Settlement	5 years 5 years	Wesleyan Chapel, Inglewood	79/1800		23 August 1879	Revd. David McNicoll
39	25 August 1879	Samuel Henry Baniball Jane Ann Ede	Samuel Henry Barriball Jane Ann Ede 💍 1879/1780	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	26 20 4/12	Waimakarino Waimakarino	26 years 9 months	Residence of John Bishop Waimakarino	79/1799	John Bishop, resident in the Colony having authority to give consent	25 August 1879	Revd. Joseph Sharp
40	27 August 1879	Richard Thomas White Mary Ann Jupp	Richard Thomas Hicks Mary Ann Jupp 💍 1879/2409	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	25 21	Tikorangi District Tikorangi District	8 years 10 years	St. Mary's Episcopal Church, New Plymouth	79/2452		27 August 1879	Venble. Archdeacon St. Hill Govett
41	5 September 1879	George Woodhouse Annie Kelly	George Woodhouse Annie Kelly 💍 1879/1677	Bachelor Spinster	Accountant	47 26	New Plymouth Remuera	5 years 26 years	St. Mark's Episcopal Church, Remuera	Auckland 79/1492		5 September 1879	Venble. Archdeacon Lonsdale Pritt
42	13 September 1879	Edward William Stockman Emily George	Edward William Stookman Emily George 💍 1879/3329	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer Schoolmistress	20 30	Tikorangi Tikorangi	10 years 9 years	Office of the Registrar of Marriages, New Plymouth	79/1798	Geo. Stockman, Father	13 September 1879	Louis von Rota, Registrar
43	17 September 1879	Samuel Jakes Hannah Raynor	Samuel Jakes Hannah Raynor 💍 1879/1794	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	24 17	Bell Block Bell Block	3 years 2 years	Residence of Frederick Bell, New Plymouth	79/1804	Richard Raynor, Father	17 September 1879	Revd. David McNicoll

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).