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 383

District of Wellington Quarter ending Oct - Dec

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
215	1 October 1880	Charles Gage Augusta Gillon	Charles Sage Augusina Gillon 💍 1880/2800	Widower Widow	Farmer	45 52	Wellington Wellington	1 Week 1 Week	Registrar Office	80/2450		2 October 1880	J. W. Adams Depy
216	1 October 1880	Henry Daysh Mary Ann Davey	Henry Daysh Mary Ada Davey 💍 1880/456	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	21 17	Taita Taita	9 years 9 years	Masonic Hall	80/2315	Thomas Davey, Father	1 October 1880	Rev. J. Moir
217	4 October 1880	John Cherry Alice Power	John Merry Alice Powell 💍 1880/121 John Gilmore Alice Cone 💍 1880/2550	Bachelor Spinster	Shoemaker	27 21	Willis Street Leeds Street	5 months 1 year	House of John Glenny	80/2440		4 October 1880	Rev. H. B. Redstone
218	5 October 1880	John Downs Eves Eugenie Mary Hale	John Downs Eves Eugenie Mary Hale 💍 1880/127	Bachelor Spinster	Builder	29 24	Wellington Wellington	3 days 9 years	Baptist Church	80/2496		5 October 1880	Rev. Samuel Costall
219	5 October 1880	John Dupree Louisa Chambers	John Dupree Louisa Chambers 💍 1880/2801	Bachelor Spinster	Tin Smith	28 22	Sydney Street Taranaki Street	6 months 5 months	Registrar's Office	80/2437		6 October 1880	H. Clapcott
220	9 October 1880	Frederick Stipples Jane Burrows	Frederick Stupples Jane Burrows 💍 1880/141	Bachelor Spinster	Foreman	27 29	Wellington Wellington	4 years 4 months	House of Capt. Stafford, Abel Smith Street	80/2464		9 October 1880	Rev. John Moir
221	8 October 1880	James Hughes Christina Smith	James Hughes Christina Smith 💍 1880/129	Bachelor Spinster	Lithographer	45 23		9 years 9 years	Christ Church	80/2448		8 October 1880	Rev. T. H. Harvey
222	8 October 1880	Peter John Burke Bridget Teresa Church	Peter John Bourke Bridget Teresa Moore 💍 1880/775	Bachelor Spinster	Painter	22 22	Tinakori Road Wordsworth Street	7 years 3 years	St. Joseph's Church	80/2449		8 October 1880	Rev. Father Kerrigan
223	8 October 1880	Richard Baumgart Grace Moore	Richard Baumgart Grace Moore 💍 1880/458	Bachelor Spinster	Clarks Assistant	28 28	Wellington Wellington	2 years 2 years	House of Petr. Teviotdale	80/2492 80/3067			Rev. C. C. Ogg
224	9 October 1880	Alfred Taylor Lydia Reed	Alfred Taylor Lydia Reed 💍 1880/2802	Widower Spinster	Butcher	24 21	Kawanara Tinakori Road	1 year 1 year	The Terrace	80/2452		9 October 1880	H. Clapcott
225	12 October 1880	George Coe Mary Barber	George Coe Mary Barber 💍 1880/122	Widower Widow	Porter	62 52	Wellington Wellington	10 months 9 years	House of G. Coe	80/2491		12 October 1880	Rev. James Paterson
226	13 October 1880	Henry Hamleth Franks Edith Ellen Jones	Henry Hamilton Clarke Edith Ellen Jones 💍 1880/2803	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	27 21	Kairana Kairana	9 years 5 weeks	Registrar Office, Wellington	80/2483		13 October 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).