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 465

District of Wairau 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
1	2 January 1880	George Edward Kinsey Margaret Parsons	George Edward Kinsey Margaret Parsons 💍 1880/801	Bachelor Widow	Butcher	41 33	Tua Marina Renwick Town	7 years 30 years	The Presbyterian Manse, Blenheim	80/231		2 January 1880	Revd. Jno. Shirriffs
2	31 January 1880	James Low Hannah Fitzgerald	James Low Johanna Fitzgerald 💍 1880/822	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer Domestic Servant	33 26	Blenheim Blenheim	about 7 years about 5 years	The House of the Revd. A. R. J. Deauzeau, Blenheim	1234		31 January 1880	Revd. A. R. J. Deauzeau
3	5 February 1880	William Stafford Turley Amy Isabel Dodson	William Stafford Furbey Amy Isabel Douson 💍 1880/819	Bachelor Spinster	Telegraphist	30 18	Blenheim Blenheim	6 years 18 years	Church of the Nativity, Blenheim	80/234	Henry Dodson, father	5 February 1880	Venble. H. F. Butt
4	9 February 1880	Frederick Bennett Annie Bolt	Frederick Bennett Annie Bolt 💍 1880/812	Bachelor Spinster	Shearer Domestic Servant	27 23	Awatere Blenheim	1 year 1 year	The Presbyterian Manse, Blenheim	80/232		9 February 1880	Revd. Jno. Shirriffs
5	13 February 1880	Henry Baldock [UNCLEAR] Elizabeth Macdonald	Henry Baldick Strickland Elizabeth Macdonald 💍 1880/818	Bachelor Spinster	Farm Laborer Domestic Servant	22 23	Wairau Blenheim	14 years about 20 years	The Presbyterian Manse, Blenheim	80/233		13 February 1880	Revd. Jno. Shirriffs
6	16 February 1880	William Boyle Caroline Reward	William Boyle Caroline Nevard 💍 1880/820	Bachelor Spinster	Blacksmith Housekeeper	23 35	Renwick Town Waihopai	about 5 years about 4 years	The House of Mr. Geo. Mason, High Street, Blenheim	80/235		16 February 1880	Revd. Jno. Shirriffs
7	19 February 1880	Thomas Allport Lydia Browne	Thomas Allport Lydia Browne 💍 1880/802	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	22 18	Tua Marina Tua Marina	4 years 6 weeks	The House of Mr. Charles Lucas, Grove Road, Blenheim	80/240	Lydia Browne, mother	19 February 1880	Revd. J. G. Barr
8	6 March 1880	Henry John Brown Catherine Jane Burrow	Henry John Brown Catherine Jane Curnow 💍 1880/803 Henry Faber Brown Catherine Annie Bennett 💍 1880/865	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	25 21	Blenheim Blenheim	4 years 18 months	The House of Nicholas Burrows, High Street, Blenheim	80/241		6 March 1880	Revd. J. G. Barr

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).