Intentions to Marry, 1875

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840387, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Luke at Archives NZ Wellington, May 16 2025.

This register is quite fragile and some of the pages are damaged or even missing.

Page 669

District of Oamaru Quarter ending 30 June 1875

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
406	3 April 1875	Simon Conway Ada Harrington	Simon Conway Ada Harrington 💍 1875/643	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer Dressmaker	31 27	Oamaru Oamaru	2 years 4 years	The Manse	75/445		3 April 1875	Revd. A. B. Todd
407	5 April 1875	Thomas Henry Horton Jane Richardson	Thomas Henry Woonton Jane Richardson 💍 1875/1751 Mats Rasmusson Jane Richardson 💍 1875/1036	Bachelor Spinster	Blacksmith Dressmaker	22 21	Oamaru Oamaru	13 years 8 years	St Lukes Church	75/394		5 April 1875	Algernon Gifford
408	16 April 1875	Daniel West Janet Algie	Daniel West Janet Algie 💍 1875/473	Widower Widow	Gardener Dressmaker	53 39	Oamaru Oamaru	3 days 2 weeks	The Residence of Mr John Milligan, Thames Street, Oamaru	75/492		16 April 1875	John Armitage
409	16 April 1875	Stephen Henry Smith Margaret Maddon	Stephen Henry Smith Margaret Madden 💍 1875/644	Bachelor Spinster	Boatman	20 19	Oamaru Oamaru	2 years 6 months	The Residence of Mr John Maddon in Thames Street, Oamaru	75/446	John Maddon, Father of Mr Maddon. A declaration was also made that person living in colony has authority to give consent to the marriage of this minor.	20 April 1875	J. R. Davidson and A. B. Todd
410	24 April 1875	Vincent Bond Margaret Donaldson	Vincent Bond Margaret Donaldson 💍 1875/474	Widower Spinster	Laborer Domestic Servant	28 28	Oamaru Oamaru	2 years 10 months	The Manse	75/493		24 April 1875	J. Armitage and A. B. Todd
411	26 April 1875	George Granger Mary Ann Parsons	George Granger Mary Ann Parsons 💍 1875/645	Widower Widow	Farmer Nurse	53 52	Cave Valley Oamaru	3 years 8 years	Mr Parsons residence at Oamaru	75/494		26 April 1875	J. R. Davidson and A. B. Todd
412	26 April 1875	William Walker Ellen Carslews Barratt	William Walker Ellen Carslaw Carruth 💍 1875/545	Bachelor Spinster	Engine driver Dressmaker	29 19	Oamaru Oamaru	8 years 13 years	The Residence of Mrs Barratt in Thames Street, Oamaru	75/541	Charlotte Barratt, Mother	26 April 1875	J. Armitage and A. B. Todd
413	27 April 1875	Henry Clayton Julia Dunn	Henry Claston Julia Dunn 💍 1875/875	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer Domestic Servant	21 23	Oamaru Oamaru	2 years 6 months	The Roman Catholic Church at Oamaru	75/1043		27 April 1875	Patrick O'Leary
414	30 April 1875	EaDonald Kennedy Helen Hamilton formerly Smillie	Donald Kennedy Helen Hamilton 💍 1875/909	Bachelor Widow	Storekeeper Dressmaker	38 31	Otepopo Oamaru	5 years 6 months	The office of the Registrar at Otepopo	75/904		30 April 1875	The Registrar at Otepopo
415	28 May 1875	John Dooley Mary Marshall	John Wooley Mary Marshall 💍 1875/876	Bachelor Spinster	Hotelkeeper Domestic Servant	28 20	Oamaru Oamaru	9 years 4 years	St Patrick's Church, Oamaru	75/1044	Declaration made that person living in colony has authority to give consent to the marriage of this minor.	28 May 1875	Revd. Jeremiah Donovan

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).