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 795

District of Oamaru Quarter ending 31 March 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	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
736	3 March 1879	Stephen John Smart Margaret Orr	Stephen John Smart Margaret Orr 💍 1879/694	Bachelor Spinster	Blacksmith	22 22	Duntroon Oamaru	2 years 5 years	The residence of Mr. Robert Orr in Hull Street - Oamaru	79/593	3 March 1879	Revd. A. B. Todd
737	11 March 1879	John Irvine Susannah Annies	John Irvine Susannah Amies 💍 1879/1433	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer Dressmaker	38 24	Oamaru Totara	2 years 17 years	The residence of Mr. Robert Annies at Totara	79/1420	11 March 1879	Revd. Charles Edward Barley
738	15 March 1879	George Chalmers Laura Thwaites		Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	31 21	Duntroon Duntroon	3 years 4 years	The residence of Mr. Edward Thwaites at Duntroon		15 March 1879	Revd. Sydney Calvert Jackson Prince
739	21 March 1879	Francis Thomas Elizabeth Frances Smith	Francis Thomas Elizabeth Frances Smith 💍 1879/1445	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk	38 30	Duntroon Duntroon	7 years 1 year	St. Luke's Church	79/1426	21 March 1879	Revd. Algernon Gifford
740	25 March 1879	Sampson Carlyon Mary Ann Goodson	Samson Carlyon Mary Ann Goodson 💍 1879/695	Widower Spinster	Laborer Domestic Servant	25 25	Oamaru Oamaru	4 years 5 years	The residence of Mr. Henry Richmond in Ribble Street Oamaru	79/594	25 March 1879	Revd. Henry Dewsbury
741	25 March 1879	Harry Powell Georgiana Bridella Smith	Harry Powell Georgina Bridella Smith 💍 1879/696	Bachelor Spinster	Blacksmith	21 22	Oamaru Oamaru	12 years 5 years	The residence of Mr. Samuel Solomon Smith in Thames Street Oamaru	79/595	25 March 1879	Revd. Henry Dewsbury
742	27 March 1879	Hugh McPhee Eliza Dogherty	Hugh McPhee Lizzie Dougherty 💍 1879/738	Bachelor Spinster	Ploughman Cook	25 24	Oamaru Oamaru	9 days 9 days	St. Patrick's Church	79/619	27 March 1879	Revd. William Coleman
743	29 March 1879	Henry Cheriton Florence Seaton	Henry Cheriton Florence Deaton 💍 1879/735	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer Nurse	25 23	Oamaru Oamaru	4 months 10 months	The Office of the Registrar of Marriages - Oamaru	79/642	29 March 1879	The Registrar of Marriages - Oamaru

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).