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 313

District of Wanganui Quarter ending 30 June 1880

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
15	8 April 1880	John Anderson Mary Way	John Anderson Mary Day 💍 1880/1470 John Anderson Minette Wardrop Venables 💍 1880/1659	Widower Spinster	Minister	32 21	Wanganui do	18 months do	In the Office of the Registrar	80/898		8 April 1880	G. W. Woon, Registrar
16	19 April 1880	James Morrison Eliza Bond	James Morrison Eliza Bond 💍 1880/2267	Bachelor Widow	Ropemaker	36 42	Wanganui do	4 days do	In the Presbyterian Manse, Wanganui	80/1/100		19 April 1880	Rev. James Treadwell, Presbyterian
17	20 April 1880	Robert W. Favel Sarah W. Favel		Bachelor Spinster		18 21	Putiki do do	18 years do	In the Church of England, Putiki		Favel, father	20 April 1880	Rev. Arria Te Hana, Church of England
18	24 April 1880	Joseph Jones Maria Wiley	Joseph Jones Maria Wyley 💍 1880/1480 Josiah Jones Maria Devenny 💍 1880/870	Widower Spinster	Builder	60 22	Wanganui do	6 months do	At the Residence of G.R.	80/904		24 April 1880	Rev. William Lee, Wesleyan
19	28 April 1880	James McKain Agnes Rickup	James McKain Agnes Pickup 💍 1880/1471	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	32 21	Wanganui do	20 years do	In the Office of the Registrar of Marriages, Wanganui	80/899		28 April 1880	G. W. Woon, Registrar
20	1 May 1880	Thomas Byrnes Mary Leahy	Thomas Byrne Mary Leahy 💍 1880/21	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	22 24	Wanganui do	12 months do	In the Roman Catholic Church, Wanganui	80/911		1 May 1880	Rev. C. H. Kirk, Roman Catholic
21	3 May 1880	William Johnston Eliza Howard	William James Johnston Eliza Howard 💍 1880/2088	Bachelor Spinster	Storekeeper	20 21	Wanganui do	9 months do	In the Presbyterian Manse, Wanganui	80/913	William Johnston, father	3 May 1880	Rev. James Treadwell, Presbyterian
22	3 May 1880	Arthur H. Seaton Marion E. Grant	Arthur James Stuart Seaton Marion Sargeant 💍 1880/1477	Bachelor Spinster	Teacher	25 22	Turakina do	18 months do	In St. John's Palmerston North	80/904		3 May 1880	Rev. F. L. Tudor, Church of England
23	4 May 1880	Charles Moore Emily Smith Patterson	Charles Moore Annie Emily Patterson 💍 1880/1472	Bachelor Spinster	Butcher	22 16	Wanganui do	6 months do	Ed. L. Smith, Wilson St, Wanganui	1908	Ed. L. Smith, father	4 May 1880	G. W. Woon, Registrar
24	7 May 1880	Thomas Jeffares Hannah Smith	Thomas Jeffares Hannah Smith 💍 1880/2072	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	70 19	Wanganui do	14 days do	In the Residence of Mr. Wilson, Wanganui			7 May 1880	Rev. C. H. Kirk, Roman Catholic
25	8 May 1880	Philip Lander Payne Sarah Caradus	Philip Lambert Payne Sarah Caradus 💍 1880/22	Bachelor Spinster	Railway Official	29 20.5	Wanganui do	12 months do	Campbell St, Wanganui	1913	Anastasia Caradus, mother	8 May 1880	Rev. C. H. Kirk, Roman Catholic
26	11 May 1880	Henry Warner Harriett Wall	Henry Warner Harriet Wall 💍 1880/18	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	24 22	Brunswick Line Wanganui	6 months 22 years	In the Residence of Mr. John Wall, Missionary Line, Wanganui	80/908		11 May 1880	Rev. Geo. [UNCLEAR], Wesleyan

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

100% Contrast

100% Brightness

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).