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 388

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
275	21 December 1880	Alfred Williams Miriam Bamford	Alfred Williams Miriam Bamford 💍 1881/1408	Bachelor Spinster	Government Photographer	24 24	Wellington Wellington	24 years 10 months	Registrars Office	81/358		21 December 1880	J. G. Holasworth
276	23 December 1880	Alfonso Moschini Lesina Simion	Alfonso Moschini Cesira Timion 💍 1880/2834	Bachelor Spinster	Sailmaker	35 21		5 years 5 years	Registrars Office	80/2463		23 December 1880	J. G. Holasworth
277	23 December 1880	William Thomas Humphrey Anna Catarina Petersen	William Thomas Pumfrey Anna Catarina Petersen 💍 1880/2835	Bachelor Spinster	Tanner	25 16	Wellington	5 years 8 years	Registrars Office	80/2464	Hans Petersen, father	23 December 1880	J. G. Holasworth
278	23 December 1880	John Wilson Henderson Edith Hannah Baker	John Wilson Henderson Edith Hannah Baker 💍 1880/2821	Bachelor Spinster	Bank agent	39 20	father of the Bride	4 days 19 years	Residence of the father of the Bride	80/2465	Ebenger Baker, Father	23 December 1880	Rev. James Paterson
279	24 December 1880	Edward Charl Shumis Caroline Elizabeth Stella	Edward Charles Morris Caroline Elizabeth Stella Moore 💍 1880/2817	Bachelor Spinster	Watchmaker	22 19	father of the Bride	2 years 2 years	Residence of the father of the Bride	80/2469	Frederick George Moore, Father	24 December 1880	Rev. A. B. chaston
280	28 December 1880	Edward Head Elyebeth Lander	Edward Head Elizabeth Lander 💍 1880/2836	Bachelor Widow	Coachsmith	47 55	Wellington	4 days 4 days	Registrars Office	80/2466		28 December 1880	J. G. Holasworth
281	28 December 1880	Thomas Lorabie Emma Louisa Cover	Thomas Crosbie Emma Louisa Hillyer 💍 1880/112	Bachelor Widow	Butcher	34 27		3 years 4 years	Roman Catholic Church, Carterton	80/2730		28 December 1880	Rev. Father Halbwachs
282	31 December 1880	Henry John Knowles Jarah Elizabeth Barber	Henry John Knowles Sarah Elizabeth Barber 💍 1880/139	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk	21 17	Father of the Bride	5 years all her life	Residence of the father of the Bride	80/2483	James Otho Barber, father	31 December 1880	Rev. W. Kirk
283	31 December 1880	Albert L Green Mary Mawson	Albin L'Green Mary Mawson 💍 1881/313	Bachelor Spinster	Shopman	27 18	Hanson Street	3 years 5 years	Mr. Chouses House	81/219	John Close, Guardian	31 December 1880	Rev. H. B. Reastone
284	31 December 1880	Charles Lovett Marian Tumahai	Charles Lovett Marian Tannahill 💍 1881/320	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	24 15	Bride, Lower Hutt	2 years 15 years	Residence of the Bride	81/225	Elizabeth Tumahai, Mother	31 December 1880	Rev. William Cannell

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).