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 369

District of Wellington 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
107	26 April 1880	William Wills Emily Alice Unphy	William Wills Emily Alice Murphy 💍 1880/2051	Bachelor Spinster	Salesman	23 18	Wellington	9 years 9 years	St. Paul's	80/1601		26 April 1880	Rev. R.L. Harvey
108	28 April 1880	George Thomas Charles Bannister Carrie Eva Gebay	George Thomas Charles Bannister Maria McGahey 💍 1880/2037	Bachelor Spinster	Chemist	26 20		1 year 8 years	Registrar's office	80/1610		28 April 1880	H. Clapcott
109	28 April 1880	John Peak Emily Jane Thacker	John Peek Emily Jane Thacker 💍 1880/2240	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	29 22		7 years 7 years	House of John Peak, Newtown	80/1625		28 April 1880	Rev. W.S. Potter
110	29 April 1880	Sills John Gebbons Isabella Fenerce	Sills John Gibbons Isabella Florence Sophia Carter 💍 1880/2052	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk	22 24		12 years 12 years	St. Paul's Cathedral	80/1602	Sophia Carter	29 April 1880	Rev. R.W. Harvey
111	30 April 1880	James O'Brien Mary Ann Payne	James O'Brien Mary Ann Payn 💍 1880/2036	Bachelor Spinster	Carter	21 18		Life time 7 years	Registrar's office	80/1609		30 April 1880	H. Clapcott
112	1 May 1880	Peter Johnson Anna Oovne	Peter Johnson Anna Downie 💍 1880/2039	Bachelor Spinster	Sailmaker	33 30		3 days 3 days	Registrar's office	80/1612		1 May 1880	H. Clapcott
113	3 May 1880	William Owen Healy Bridged McGrath	William Owen Healy Bridget McGrath 💍 1880/2263	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk	26 24		9 years 9 years	R.C. Cathedral	80/1598		4 May 1880	Rev. J. Ile Numann
114	4 May 1880	Edward Quinlan Mary Ann Hook	Edward Quinlan Mary Ann Hook 💍 1880/2254	Bachelor Spinster	Mariner	27 18		9 years 9 years	St. Peter's Church	80/1590		4 May 1880	Rev. Archdeacon Stock
115	4 May 1880	John Burnio Sarah Anne While	John Currie Sarah Anne Wheeler 💍 1880/2041 John Mortimer Sarah Ann Shaw 💍 1880/273	Bachelor Spinster	Merchant	35 24		9 days 9 days	Registrar's office	80/1613		5 May 1880	H. Clapcott
116	4 May 1880	Timothy Hayes Mary Shehay	Timothy Hayes Mary Sheehy 💍 1880/2264	Bachelor Spinster	Contractor	35 25		3 years 3 years	R.C. Cathedral St. Mary's	80/-		6 May 1880	Rev. J. Ile Numann
117	5 May 1880	George Wilson Annie Congrave	George Wilson Amy Cosgrove 💍 1880/2046	Bachelor Spinster	Dealer	30 27		1 year 2 years	R.C. Church [UNCLEAR]	80/1596		5 May 1880	Rev. T. Kerrigan
118	6 May 1880	John Williams Ellen King	John Williams Ellen King 💍 1880/2042	Bachelor Spinster	Laboring Man	25 24		2 months 2 months	Registrar's office	80/1614		6 May 1880	H. Clapcott

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).