Intentions to Marry, 1885

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840397, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Carole at Archives NZ Wellington, April 30 2025

Page 675

District of Hokitika Quarter ending 31 December 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	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
1000	3 October 1885	Charles Sears Abigail Willoughby	Charles Sears Abigail Willoughby 💍 1885/3329	Bachelor Widow	Miner Domestic	51 48	Woodstock Woodstock	20 years 20 years	Private residence of Mrs Willoughby at Woodstock	85/3334	3 October 1885	Rev Wm Douglas
1001	8 October 1885	Robert Cuthbert Hemmings Fisher Sarah King	Robert Cuthbert Hemmings Fisher Sarah King 💍 1885/3332	Bachelor Widow	Brewer Domestic	39 31	Hokitika Hokitika	3 months 20 years	All Saints Church at Hokitika	85/3337	8 October 1885	Rev H. G. Goued
1002	20 October 1885	James McLaughlin Mary Brooks	James McLaughlin Mary Brooks 💍 1885/3331	Bachelor Widow	Farmer Storekeeper	48 41	Hokitika Hokitika	4 days 5 days	Roman Catholic Chapel Hokitika	85/3336	22 October 1885	Rev Father Martin
1003	23 October 1885	William Augustus Hooper Margaret Morris	William Augustus Cooper Margaret Morris 💍 1885/3334 William Ambrose Mead Margaret Morris 💍 1886/520	Bachelor Spinster	Miner Domestic	38 28	Rimu Rimu	3 years 3 years	Office of the Registrar of Marriages at Hokitika	85/3339	23 October 1885	Registrar of Marriages
1004	24 October 1885	Thomas George Davy Emily Gates	Thomas George Davy Emily Yates 💍 1885/3333	Bachelor Spinster	Medical Domestic	29 29	Kumara Hokitika	over 4 months one 3 days	All Saints Church Hokitika	85/3338	24 October 1885	Rev H. G. Goued
1005	3 December 1885	Thomas William Quelch Honeywics Marian Beattie	Thomas William Quelch Honeywill Marian Beattie 💍 1885/3312	Widower Widow	Surgeon Housekeeper	52 37	Hokitika Hokitika	10 years 10 years	Wesleyan Parsonage Hokitika	85/3341	3 December 1885	Rev C. Abernethy
1006	14 December 1885	John Albert Giese Johanna Luderika Harueka Schröder	John Albert Giese Johanna Ludowika Wallesha Schroder 💍 1885/3335	Bachelor Spinster	Storeman Domestic	24 24	Hokitika Hokitika	16 years 4 years	Oddfellows Hall	85/3340	14 December 1885	J. N. C. Heine
1007	26 December 1885	James Herbert Rodgers Mary Walker	James Herbert Rodgers Mary Walker 💍 1885/3330	Bachelor Spinster	Mechanical Engineer Domestic	31 21	Kumara Hokitika	8 years 18 years	Presbyterian Church Kumara	85/3335	26 December 1885	Rev W Douglas

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).