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 321

District of Rangitikei 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
3	13 April 1880	Cornelius Robert- Shellers Emma Catherine Annstin	Cornelius Robert Skelley Emma Catherine Lumsden 💍 1880/2078	Bachelor Spinster	Draper	25 years 28	Sandon Parewanui	3 days 9 years	the house of Mr. Soulterson	80/924		13 April 1880	Rev- R. D. Marten
4	26 April 1880	Thomas Munro Isabella Dunbar	Thomas Munro Isabella Dunbar 💍 1880/2778	Bachelor Spinster	Storekeeper	43 yrs 27	Bulls Rangitikei	7 years	the Manse	80/925		26 April 1880	Rev John Ross
5	31 May 1880	Robert Hughes Catherine Cunningham	Robert James Christina Cunningham 💍 1880/2699	Bachelor Spinster	Painter	24 yrs 20 yrs	Marton Wartvie	1 week 12 yrs	the residence of Mrs Robert Barr	80/919		31 May 1880	Rev- R. D. Stewart
6	31 May 1880	Samuel Voy Beard Caroline Phoebe Hearing	Samuel Toy Beard Caroline Phoebe Newing 💍 1880/1479	Bachelor Spinster	farmer	28 yrs 20 yrs	Moa. Side Marton Marton	12 yrs 18 yrs	Church of England Marton	Wanganui 80/906	[UNCLEAR] Hearing, father	31 May 1880	Rev. J. L. Tudor
7	31 May 1880	Samuel Gray Emma Haives	Samuel Gray Emma Haines 💍 1880/2779	Bachelor Spinster	Stockman	23 yrs 19 yrs	Heaton Park Heaton Park	9 yrs 4 months	the house of Isaac Haives	80/ 12429	Isaac Haives, father	31 May 1880	Rev- J. Ross
8	9 June 1880	Henry Joseph McHugh Fanny Belcher	Henry Joseph McHugh Fanny Balmer 💍 1880/2780	Bachelor Spinster	farmer	33 yrs 19 yrs	Jurakina Valley Jurakina Valley	3 yrs 3 yrs	the house of Mr. Blanchett	80/ 12430	Archibald Belcher, Step-father	9 June 1880	Rev- J. Ross
9	9 June 1880	William John Gray Catherine Aiken	William John Gray Catharine Aiken 💍 1880/2093	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	25 yrs 20 yrs	Upper Tutaenui Valley Upper Tutaenui Valley	25 yrs 14 yrs	the house of Mr. Aiken	80/920	Ann Aiken, Mother	9 June 1880	Rev- Alex Stewart
10	9 June 1880	Maurice Hale Ann Aiken	Maurice Hale Ann Aiken 💍 1880/2094	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	33 yrs 22 yrs	Paraekaru Upper Tutaenui Valley	2 yrs 14 yrs	the house of Mr. Aiken	80/921	Aley Aiken, Mother	9 June 1880	Rev- Alex Stewart
11	29 June 1880	William Charles Fry Margaret Keaue	William Charles Fry Margaret Keane 💍 1880/2091	Bachelor Spinster	Blacksmith	22 yrs 20 yrs	Jurakina Jurakina	4 yrs 1 yr	the Catholic Church Jurakina	80/ 918	John Keaue, father	21 June 1880	Rev- Charles Cato

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).