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 365

District of Wellington Quarter ending 30 June 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	Consent	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
132	16 May 1879	Phillip Thomas Rees Marian Philomela O'Shaughnessy	Phillip Thomas Rees Marian Philomela O'Shaughnessy 💍 1879/1070	Bachelor Spinster	Compositor Dressmaker	21 20	Wellington Wellington	2 years 3 years	Registrar's Office Wellington	79/1024	no one in Colony	16 May 1879	Registrar of Marriages Wellington
133	17 May 1879	Guicomo Colombini Elizabeth Barnes	Giocomo Colombini Elizabeth Barnes 💍 1879/1067	Widower Widow	Cook Housemaid	40 41	Wellington Wellington	3 years 5 years	The Registrar's Office Wellington	79/1024		17 May 1879	Registrar of Marriages Wellington
134	16 May 1879	John Cole Edwards Frances Bradford	John Cole Edwards Fanny Bradford 💍 1879/1110	Bachelor Spinster	Printer	25 26	Wellington Wellington	2 years	House of Revd. Jas. Paterson Auckland / The Terrace Wellington	79/1044		16 May 1879	Revd. Jas. Paterson Pres.
135	17 May 1879	William Roberts Mary Spurritt	William Roberts Mary Spurrett 💍 1879/2863 William Roberts Mary Anderson 💍 1879/2746	Widower Spinster	Stevedore Servant	39 27	Wellington Wellington	11 years 15 months	Cathedral of St. Mary's Hill Street Wellington	79/1253		17 May 1879	Revd. P. McGuinness C.P.
136	19 May 1879	George Fleet Mary Anne Jewener	George Fleet Mary Ann Taverner 💍 1879/1130	Widower Widow	Brickmaker	55 60	The Taita The Taita	14 years 6 months	Church of England The Taita	79/1065		19 May 1879	Revd. Thos. Lan Court C.E.
137	20 May 1879	William Henry Pepper Sarah Payne	William Henry Pepper Anderson Sarah Payne 💍 1879/1534	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Servant	23 17	Wellington Wellington	18 years 4 years	Registrar's Office Wellington	79/1531	no one in Colony	20 May 1879	Registrar of Marriages Wellington
138	20 May 1879	Johann Christian Eugene Anderson Emma Stemmuller	Johann Christian Eugene Emma Steinmuller 💍 1879/1124	Bachelor Spinster	Mariner	26 20	Wellington Wellington	15 months 15 months	House of Mr. Eugene Willis Street Wellington	79/1081	Sarah Koch formerly Mother	20 May 1879	Revd. C.S. Ogg Pres.
139	20 May 1879	Peter Dickson Mary Stirling formerly Ness	Peter Dickson Mary Stirling 💍 1879/1089	Bachelor Widow	Draper	24 28	Wellington Wellington	3 years 4 years	House of A. Veitch Elizabeth Street Wellington	79/1047		20 May 1879	Revd. Jas. Paterson Pres.

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).