Intentions to Marry, 1881

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840393, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Luke at Archives NZ Wellington, January 31 2025

Page 627

District of Hokilika Quarter ending 31 March 1881

No	Date of Notice	Names and Surnames of Parties	BDM Match	Condition	Calling or Profession	Age	Dwelling Place	Length of Residence	Marriage Place	Folio	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
869	22 January 1881	John Kennerdef Rose Connell	John Kennedy Rose Connell 💍 1881/417	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer Domestic	45 40	Kellys Creek Hokitika	7 months 3 days	St Mary's Church Hokitika R.C.	81/352	22 January 1881	P. A. Martin
870	February 1881	William Thomas Steaornson Rosina Larcombe	William Thomas Stephenson Rosina Larcomb 💍 1881/443	Bachelor Spinster	Miner Domestic	27 22	Kanieri Kanieri	3 years 3 days	Private residence of Mr Williamson, Seaview, Kanieri	81/354	February 4th 1881	John Smith
871	14 February 1881	Humphry Thorp Emma Salmon	Humphry Oliver Emma Salmon Dean 💍 1881/418	Bachelor Spinster	Grocer Dressmaker	21 25	Hokitika Hokitika	15 years 13 years	All Saints Church, Hokitika	81/353	February 14th 1881	H. H. Hamilton
872	8 March 1881	William Fraer Isla Anderson	William Fraser Penelope Anderson 💍 1881/419 William Darlow Christina Anderson 💍 1881/559	Bachelor Spinster	Miner Domestic	48 29	Hokitika Hokitika	3 days 2 years	The private residence of Mr R. Crump, Hokitika	81/354	March 8th 1881	Revd W. West
873	10 March 1881	Thomas Main Mary Anderson	Thomas Main Mary Anderson 💍 1881/438 Thomas Davidson Johanna Anderson 💍 1881/2389 John Mahony Mary Anderson 💍 1881/2092	Bachelor Widow	Carpenter Domestic	34 32	Hokitika Hokitika	2 years 14 years	Office of the Registrar, Hokitika	81/356	March 10th 1881	The Registrar
874	14 March 1881	John Smith Laura Price	John Smith Laura Trice 💍 1881/427 John Smith Mary Lowe Mitchell 💍 1881/1137	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Domestic	21 21	Hokitika Hokitika	15 years 15 years	Office of the Registrar, Hokitika	81/355	March 14th 1881	The Registrar

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).