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 363

District of Wellington 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	Consent	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
72	16 March 1880	John Jubary Annie J Paterson	John Tilbury Annie Jackson Paterson 💍 1880/3178	Widower Spinster	Labourer	28 28	Hutt Wellington	6 mos 9 years	House of Mrs Paterson	80/162		16 March 1880	Rev C.S. Ogg
73	14 March 1880	Alfred Neylo Jr Jessie Thomson	Alfred Keys Junior Jessie Thomson 💍 1880/1074	Bachelor Spinster	Butcher	23 18	Karori Hutt	1 yr 4 yrs	Registrar's Office	81/189	James Thomson, father	17 March 1880	Registrar
74	17 March 1880	Edward Jacques Susan Bradley	Edward Iggulden Susan Bawhey 💍 1880/1318	Widower Spinster	Carrier	65 23	Wellington Wellington	7 years 9 years	House of Rev D Dutton	81/[UNCLEAR] 639		24 March 1880	Rev D Dutton
75	22 March 1880	John Morrison Emma L Bond	John Laud Morrison Emma Louisa Bond 💍 1880/3203 James Morrison Eliza Bond 💍 1880/2267	Bachelor Spinster	Ropemaker	28 18	Petone Wellington	2 yrs 4 1/2 yrs	St Peter's Church	80/214		22 March 1880	Archdeacon Stock
76	22 March 1880	Geo Henry Boulton Jane Shotter	George Henry Ralph Poulton Jane Shotter 💍 1880/1319	Bachelor Spinster	Lithographer	25 21	Wellington Wellington	15 days 15 days	Mr Deans, Sydney St	80/234 [UNCLEAR]		22 March 1880	Rev. J Dean
77	22 March 1880	David Kyle Jane Davies	David Curle Jane Dawes 💍 1880/3182	Bachelor Spinster	Prop Chronicle	42 44	Wellington Wellington	2 yrs 6 mos	House of Mrs Murle	80/246		22 March 1880	Rev N Kirk
78	23 March 1880	Richard Arthur Mortimer Alice Griffin	Richard Arthur Woodger Alice Griffin 💍 1880/1065	Bachelor Spinster	Fruiterer	27 21	Wellington Wellington	6 yrs 4 yrs	House of Rev J Morn	81/203		23 March 1880	Rev J Morn
80	25 March 1880	Thomas Duffy Bridget Meehan	Thomas Duffy Bridget Meehan 💍 1880/2040	Bachelor Spinster	Painter	25 25	Wellington Wellington	9 yrs 2 yrs	Catholic Church, Boulcott St	80/159		25 March 1880	T.M. Kearney

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).