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 681

District of Hokitika Quarter ending 31 March 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	Consent	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
981	13 January 1885	John Smith Annie Clark	John Smith Annie Clark 💍 1885/543	Bachelor Widow	Bootmaker Domestic	46 42	Hokitika Hokitika	10/10 yrs 18/10 yrs	Office of Regr of Marriages Hokitika	85/520		13 January 1885	S. J. Iago Registrar
982	19 January 1885	Henry Alfred Holmes Catherine Shannon	Henry Alfred Holmes Catherine Shannon 💍 1885/544	Bachelor Spinster	Gunsmith Domestic	24 21	Blue Spurs Hokitika	12 yrs 22 yrs	Office of Regr of Marriages Hokitika	85/521		19 January 1885	S. J. Iago Registrar
983	30 January 1885	John James Jacob Burns Elizabeth Hyndman	John James Jacob Burns Elizabeth Hyndman 💍 1885/563	Bachelor Spinster	Miner Genl Servant	24 19	Kumara Hokitika	7 years 8.2/5 yrs	Church of England at Kumara	85/571	James Hyndman the father	30 January 1885	H. Gould
984	2 February 1885	John James Jacob Burns Elizabeth Hyndman	John James Jacob Burns Elizabeth Hyndman 💍 1885/563	Bachelor Spinster	Miner Genl Servant	24 19	Hokitika Hokitika	4 days 8.2/5 yrs	Church of England at Hokitika	85/571	James Hyndman the father	2 February 1885	H. Gould
985	11 February 1885	James Brown Annie O'Connor	James Browne Annie O'Connor 💍 1885/1419 Peter Anderson Annie O'Connor 💍 1885/2802 James O'Gorman Ellen O'Connor 💍 1885/2896	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter Domestic	32 22	Dillmanstown Hokitika	4 yrs 4 days	Roman Catholic Chapel Kumara	85/1465		11 February 1885	Michael Walshe R.C. Priest
986	13 February 1885	Kirsan Hogan Margaret Callanan	Kernan Hogan Margaret Callanan 💍 1885/541	Bachelor Spinster	Miner Domestic	38 22	Hokitika Hokitika	3 years 3 months	Roman Catholic Chapel Kumara	85/158		13 February 1885	Michael Browne R.C. Priest
987	24 February 1885	Charles Cohn Julia Dimant		Bachelor Spinster	Stationer Domestic	43 27	Reefton Hokitika	11 Years 9 weeks	Jewish Synagogue Reefton	85/637		24 February 1885	Alex Singer
988	14 March 1885	John Mulviny Elizabeth Burke	John Mulvany Elizabeth Burns 💍 1885/546 John Martin Elizabeth Martin 💍 1885/230 John Williams Elizabeth Bufton 💍 1886/796 John McLeay Elizabeth Fraser 💍 1885/3546 John McNoe Elizabeth Murray 💍 1886/825 John Boys Elizabeth Curry 💍 1885/3094	Bachelor Spinster	Miner Domestic	44 21	Hokitika Hokitika	8 weeks 1 week	R.C. Chapel Hokitika	85/523		14 March 1885	Patrick Ahram R.C. Priest

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).