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 742

District of Ashburton Quarter ending Jul - Sep

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
166	27 July 1880	Robert Charles Ivory Harriett Pommer	Robert Charles Tovey Harriett Primmer 💍 1880/2396	Bachelor Spinster	Butcher Dressmaker	21 18	Ashburton Ashburton	15 months 1 month	Tinwald Private Dwelling House of James Ivory	80/2066	Ann Pommer, mother	27 July 1880	Rev. William Keall, Wesleyan Minister
167	9 August 1880	Phillip Brum Elizabeth Eleanor Gordon	Philip Crum Elizabeth Eleanor Gordon 💍 1880/2397	Bachelor Spinster	Bricklayer	21 21	Ashburton Ashburton	2 years 3 years	Wesleyan Parsonage House	80/2069		9 August 1880	Revd. William Keall, Wesleyan Minister
168	9 August 1880	Samuel Saunders Helen Johnston	Samuel Saunders Helen Johnston 💍 1880/2839 Samuel Spiers Ellen Johnston 💍 1880/1963	Bachelor Spinster	Merchant	23 23	Ashburton Dunedin	4 years 5 years	Private Dwelling House, Mr Johnston	Dunedin 80/12159		9 August 1880	Revd. Dr. Stewart, Presbyterian Minister, Dunedin, Otago, N.Z.
169	24 August 1880	Patrick O'Hannasay Mary Scannahan	Patrick O'Shaunessy Mary Shanahan 💍 1880/2394	Bachelor Spinster	Hotel Keeper	34 22	Masterton South Rakaia	2 months 1 week	Catholic Church	80/2065		24 August 1880	Revd. J. G. O'Sherrier, Roman Catholic
170	30 August 1880	Alfred Harrison Mona Watt	Alfred Harrison Mona Watt 💍 1880/2111	Bachelor Spinster	Auctioneer	34 19	Ashburton Dunedin	2 years 12 years	All Saints Church	Dunedin 80/149	Isaac Newton Watt, Dunedin, father	30 August 1880	Revd. Fitchett, Church of England, Dunedin, Otago, N.Z.
171	8 September 1880	Patrick Polian Margaret Rapley	Patrick Polian Margaret Rapley 💍 1880/2393	Bachelor Widow	Labourer	34 36	Ashburton Ashburton	6 days 10 years	Roman Catholic Chapel, Ashburton	80/2064		8 September 1880	Revd. J. G. Sherrier, Roman Catholic
172	27 September 1880	William Smith Mary Foreman	William Smith Mary Foreman 💍 1880/788	Bachelor Spinster	Gardener Dress maker	27 22	Ashburton Ashburton	4 days 7 days	Private dwelling house, Joseph William Todd	80/2067	William Todd, grandfather	27 September 1880	Revd. A. M. Beattie, Presbyterian Minister

These records have been automatically transcribed and must be verified using the page image (below)

100% Contrast

100% Brightness

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).