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 756

District of Temuka 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
73	5 April 1880	Andrew Dannell Elizabeth Young	Andrew Dunnett Elizabeth Young 💍 1880/1643 Andrew James Bredahl Eliza Young 💍 1880/24	Bachelor Spinster	Schoolmaster Schoolmistress	34 20	Winchester Winchester	18 months 9 years	The House of John Albert Young Winchester	807/1230	John Albert Young, father	5 April 1880	David Gordon
74	8 April 1880	Timothy Lyond Mary Keeffe	Timothy Lyons Mary Keeffe 💍 1880/1641	Bachelor Spinster	Farm Labourer Domestic Servant	24 22	Levels Plains Levels Plains	4 years 7 years	Roman Catholic Church Temuka	80/1228		8 April 1880	Louis Fanvell
75	12 April 1880	Cornelius Flynn Bridget Sullivan	Cornelius Flynn Bridget Sullivan 💍 1880/1642 John Riddell Bridget Sullivan 💍 1880/2487	Bachelor Spinster	Contractor None	29 22	Arowhenna Arowhenna	7 years 17 months	Roman Catholic Church Temuka	80/1229		12 April 1880	Louis Fanvell
76	13 April 1880	Charles Frances Agnes Robertson	Charles Fraser Agnes Robertson 💍 1880/1646	Widower Widow	Labourer Domestic Servant	48 47	Temuka Temuka	11 months 8 months	Registrar's Office Temuka	80/1232		13 April 1880	Thomas Reid (Registrar)
77	19 April 1880	Thomas Farrell Mary Ann Foundey	Thomas Farell Mary Connelly 💍 1880/1639 Thomas Parker Mary Ann Pierce 💍 1880/1316 Thomas Bailey Mary Ann Astor 💍 1880/1448	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer none	26 19	Winchester Winchester	5 years 15 years	Roman Catholic Church Temuka	80/1226	Thomas [UNCLEAR], Father	19 April 1880	Louis Fanvell
78	21 April 1880	William Lewis Betsy Bennett	William Lewis Betsy Bennett 💍 1880/1657	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Domestic Servant	28 21	Temuka Waitohi	7 years 14 days	House of Wm Lewis Temuka	80/1225		21 April 1880	W. S. Harper
79	21 April 1880	Andrew Daly Deborah Kane	Andrew Daly Deborah Kaine 💍 1880/1640	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer none	25 21	Pleasant Point Pleasant Point	6 years 8 years	Roman Catholic Church Temuka	80/1227		21 April 1880	Louis Fanvell
80	26 April 1880	Nicholas Grancis Mary Amelia Park	Nicholas Francis Mary Amelia Parke 💍 1880/611	Bachelor Spinster	Groom none	24 19	Beach Farm Temuka Beach Farm Temuka	3 months 13 years	House of Thomas Parke Beach Farm Temuka	80/13163	Thomas Parke, Father	26 April 1880	F. Tynell Clinton

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).