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 281

District of New Plymouth 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
10	29 April 1880	William Dale Emma Susannah Ford	William Dale Emma Susannah Ford 💍 1880/1485	Bachelor Spinster	Junctioneer	33 22	Carlyle, Patea New Plymouth	14 years 22 years	Residence of Mr. Elizabeth Ford, Devon Street, New Plymouth	80/889		29 April 1880	Rev. David Mc Nicoll, Wesleyan Methodist
11	19 May 1880	Henry Shanklow Mary Elizabeth King	Henry Mankelow Mary Elizabeth King 💍 1880/132	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	26 18	Inglewood Inglewood	6 years 4 years	Residence of John King, Inglewood	80/12405	John King, the father	19 May 1880	Rev. Francis White Hartnell, Wesleyan Methodist
12	28 May 1880	Richard Northwood Mary Jane Harrison	Richard Northwood Mary Jane Harrison 💍 1880/1482	Bachelor Spinster	Constable, A.C. Force	25 20	Pukaronhi Omata	6 years 20 years	Church of England, Omata	83/12886	Thos. Harrison, the father	28 May 1880	Rev. Henry H. Brown, Church of England
13	3 June 1880	William Miles Clara Pearn	William Miles Clara Pearn 💍 1880/1481	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	23 18	Inglewood Inglewood	2 1/2 years 2 1/2 years	Residence of William Pearn, Inglewood	80/13885	William Pearn, the father	3 June 1880	Rev. Henry H. Brown, Church of England
14	7 June 1880	Frank Emcor Roebuck Mary Richards Quick	Frank Ernest Roebuck Mary Richards Quick 💍 1880/1486	Bachelor Widow	Farmer	25 25	Okato New Plymouth	15 years 4 months	Residence of Mr. Mann, Ann Roebuck, Gill Street	80/13890		7 June 1880	Rev. David Mc Nicoll, Wesleyan Methodist
15	10 June 1880	Robert Carnell Olivia Bennett	Robert Carnell Olivia Bennett 💍 1880/1465	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	27 26	New Plymouth New Plymouth	3 months 18 months	In the St. Mary's Church	80/13892		10 June 1880	Honorable Archdeacon A. Stock, Church of England
16	15 June 1880	James Erving Corbett Annie Maria Moore	James Ersking Corbett Annie Maria Moore 💍 1880/1475	Widower Widow	Carpenter	50 35	Okato Okato	6 1/2 years 6 1/2 years	In the Office of the Registrar of Marriages, New Plymouth	80/13884		15 June 1880	Louis von Stürmer, Registrar
17	17 June 1880	Edward Tregear Eliza Emma Joynt	Edward Tregrar Eliza Emma Joynt 💍 1880/1466	Bachelor Married but divorced	Surveyor	34 24	New Plymouth New Plymouth	3 days 6 1/2 years	Episcopal Church, St. [UNCLEAR]	80/13893		17 June 1880	Venerable Archdeacon A. Stock, Church of England

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).