Intentions to Marry, 1880

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840392, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Page 191

District of Drury Quarter ending Apr - Jun

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
324	2 April 1880	Thomas Bright Mary anne OBrien	Thomas Wright Mary Anne O'Brien 💍 1880/2062 Thomas Sheehan Mary OBrien 💍 1880/2458	Bachelor Spinster	Sawyer	34 38	Drury Drury	14 years 3 years	Office of Registrar Drury	84/856		2 April 1880	William Shanahan Regr
325	17 May 1880	William Mooney Margaret Gahan	William Mooney Margaret McGahan 💍 1880/2058 Thomas Mooney Margaret Curran 💍 1880/1047	Bachelor Spinster	Platelayer	26 22	Rangiriri Tuakau	1 year 3 months	St Thomas Roman Catholic Church Drury	80/857		17 May 1880	Rev. Stephen Chataignier Roman Catholic Priest
326	17 May 1880	John Potter Ellen Morgan	John Potter Ellen Morgan 💍 1880/2732	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	27 24	Bombay Pukekohe East	2 years 15 years	house of William Morgan Pukekohe East	80/853/4		17 May 1880	Rev. Jno. Smith Wesleyan minister
327	20 May 1880	David McPherson Margaret McNutt	David McPherson Margaret McNutt 💍 1880/2060	Bachelor Spinster	Grocer	23 22	Drury Drury	18 months 3 months	house of John McPherson Drury	80/857		20 May 1880	Rev. T. Norrie Presbyterian minister
328	9 June 1880	Richard Gee Lizzie Rudd	Richard Gee Lizzie Rudd 💍 1880/12	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	32 19	Bombay Paparata	14 years 4 months	House of William Rudd Paparata	80/853	William Rudd uncle and guardian	9 June 1880	Rev. J. Norrie Presbyterian Minister
329	11 June 1880	Martin Conners Mary Butler	Denis Connell Mary Butler 💍 1880/2618	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	20 19	Pukekohe	5 years 18 years	Roman Catholic Church Pukekohe		John Butler father
330	23 June 1880	Lewis Walter King Catherine Nation	Lens Walter King Catherine Watson 💍 1880/2224	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	24 20	Pukekohe East Pukekohe	18 years 15 years	house of John Nation Pukekohe	80/853	John Nation father	23 June 1880	Rev. T. Norrie Presbyterian minister
331	24 June 1880	William Smeet Ellen McMillan	William Smeed Helen McMillan 💍 1880/2059	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	27 21	Tuakau Tuakau	10 years 7 years	house of Colin McMillan Tuakau	80/852		24 June 1880	Rev. T. Norrie Presbyterian Minister

These records have been automatically transcribed and must be verified using the page image (below)

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Attribution: This image was digitised by Archives NZ Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga and is republished here under CC BY. It has been cropped and rotated for convenience.

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 1898. More registers will be added when the Archives NZ Wellington reading room re-opens in September 2025.

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).