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 209

District of Thames Quarter ending Jan - Mar

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
851	3 January 1880	George French Catherine Sims Richards	George French Cutherine Sims Richards 💍 1880/3022	Bachelor Spinster	Grocer none	24 years 21 years	Thames Thames	3 days 9 years	In dwelling house of Mrs Richards Upper Albert Street	851/101	3rd January 1880	Rev. H. J. Watkin Wesleyan minister
852	17 January 1880	Patrick Ahern Mary Ann Duffy	Patrick Sheehy Mary Ann Duffy 💍 1880/3023	Widower Spinster	Farmer none	40 years 38 years	Paeroa Paeroa Ohinemuri	4 years 8 [UNCLEAR]	Roman Catholic Church at Ohinemuri	852/102	17 January 1880	Rev. Patrick O'Reilly Roman Catholic Priest
853	26 January 1880	Walter Ratcliff Sarah Jane Berrighty	Walter Ratcliffe Sarah Jane Gerrighty 💍 1880/3024	Bachelor Spinster	Musician none	26 years 21 years	Pollen St Thames Pollen St Thames	10 years 9 years	In dwelling house of Mrs Ratcliff Shortland Thames	853/103	26 January 1880	Rev. J. S. Neill Presbyterian minister
854	2 February 1880	Robert William Gare Julia Fenley	Owen William Gage Julia Fenley 💍 1880/3106	Bachelor Spinster	Miner none	29 years 24 years	Pollen St Thames Pollen St Thames	2 years 15 years	Protestant Episcopal Church of St George Mary St Thames	854/106	2nd February 1880	Rev. V. Lush Church of England minister
855	10 February 1880	Henry Love Eliza Sparshott	Henry Cawe Eliza Sparshott 💍 1880/3025	Bachelor Spinster	Miner Shop Assistant	43 years 30 years	Willoughby St. Pollen St.	10 years 3 years	In dwelling house of Mrs Rae Premises	855/104	10th February 1880	Rev. J. S. Neill Presbyterian minister
856	10 February 1880	Joseph James Macy Kate Spencer	Joseph James Macky Kate Spencer 💍 1880/3117	Widower Spinster	Merchant none	32 years 22 years	Eyre St Thames Parawai	4 days 10 years	In Protestant Episcopal Church of St George Thames.	856/105	10th February 1880	Rev. V. Lush Church of England 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).