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 532

District of Reefton 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
120	13 April 1880	Henry Shaw Ellen Ellis	Henry Shaw Ellen Ellis 💍 1880/1535	Bachelor Spinster	Miner Housemaid	38 22	Boatmans Reefton	3½ years 3 years	At the Empire Hotel, Reefton	80/1023		13 April 1880	Rev. John Parkin
121	29 April 1880	Daniel Williamson Elizabeth Jane Austin	Daniel William Anderson Elizabeth Jane Austin 💍 1880/1513	Bachelor Spinster	Miner Dressmaker	30 20	Reefton Reefton	3 years 3 years	At the residence of Charles Austin, Reefton	80/1024	Charles Austin, father	29 April 1880	Rev. John Parkin
122	26 May 1880	James Phipps Isabella Hannah	James Phipps Seymour Isabella Hannah 💍 1880/1514	Bachelor Spinster	Sawyer Housekeeper	24 19	Blacks Point Reefton	3½ years Two months	At the residence of Joseph Ratter, Reefton	80/1025	Elizabeth Colville, mother	26 May 1880	Rev. John Parkin
123	8 June 1880	Gerard William Sampson Fanny Bhattock	Gerard William Sampson Fanny Chattock 💍 1880/1515	Bachelor Spinster	Telegraphist	28 20	Reefton Reefton	2 years 18 months	Church, Reefton	80/1026	Richard Ghattock, father	8 June 1880	Rev. J. R. Kempthorne
124	28 June 1880	James Crosbie Annabella Graham Ferris	James Crosbie Dale Annabella Ferris 💍 1880/1516	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk in Post Office	24 21	Greymouth Kapleston	18 months 6 months	St. Stephens Church, Reefton	80/1027		28 June 1880	Rev. J. R. Kempthorne

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).