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 257

District of Hamilton 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	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
9	9 April 1880	Thomas Healy Elizabeth Bond	Thomas Healy Elizabeth Bond 💍 1880/1504	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Dom Servant	25 21	Hamilton Hamilton	1 year 4 month	Roman Catholic Church	80/882	9 April 1880	Revd J. Golden
10	10 April 1880	Frederick Sely Bridget Moriarty	Frederick Sely Bridget Moriarty 💍 1880/1464	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer Dom Servant	45 38	Whatawhata Hamilton	9 months 1 year	Roman Catholic Church	80/883	16 April 1880	Revd J. Golden
11	12 April 1880	William James Sutcliffe Mary Margaret Keane	William James Sutcliffe Mary Margaret Keane 💍 1880/1282	Bachelor Spinster	Steward	24 22	Hamilton Auckland	2 years 1 year	"British" Hotel, Auckland	20/888	12 April 1880	Revd E.M. Nelson
12	13 April 1880	Thomas Arthur Grattan Ellen Gorton	Thomas Arthur Grattan Ellen Gorton 💍 1880/1497	Bachelor Spinster	Surveyor Dom Servant	28 22	Waihou Waihou	2 years 1 year	at the office of the Registrar, Hamilton	80/886	13 April 1880	B.C. Beale, Registrar
13	19 April 1880	Arthur Colin Elmslie Elizabeth Archibald Wallace	Arthur Colin Elmsly Elizabeth Archibald Wallace 💍 1880/2752	Bachelor Spinster	Stockkeeper Dress Maker	25 23	Ngaruawahia Ngaruawahia	3 days 7 years	at the house of Mr C. Wallace, Ngaruawahia	80/889	19 April 1880	Revd J. Bruce
14	30 April 1880	Jabez Thornton Horne Katharine Alice Trewheellar	Jabez Thornton Horne Katherine Alice Trewheeler 💍 1880/1496	Bachelor Spinster	accountant	29 24	Hamilton Hamilton	5 years 7 years	at the house of Mr Trewheellar, Hamilton	80/893	30 April 1880	Revd W. Evans
15	9 May 1880	Edwin William Pakenham Walsh Elizabeth Williams	Edward William Pakinham-Walsh Elizabeth Williams 💍 1880/1498	Bachelor Spinster	accountant Governess	24 23	Hamilton Hamilton	11 months 11 months	at the office of the Registrar, Hamilton	80/899	9 May 1880	B.C. Beale, Registrar
16	17 May 1880	George Parreal Mary Millan	George Pavreal Mary Millan 💍 1880/1500	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Dom Servant	22 22	Hamilton Hamilton	16 years 3 days	at the office of the Registrar, Hamilton	80/898	17 May 1880	B.C. Beale, Registrar

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).