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 796

District of Oamaru 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	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
832	5 July 1880	John Prosser Rachel Jones	John Prosser Rachel Jones 💍 1880/2435	Bachelor Spinster	Farm Labourer Servant	24 23	Fortification Oamaru	14 months 2 years	The Manse Oamaru	80/12409	5 July 1880	Revd. A. B. Todd Presbyterian
833	5 July 1880	George Ross Jane Mitchell	George Ross Jane Mitchell 💍 1880/2436	Bachelor Spinster	Gardener Housemaid	25 27	Awamoa Awamoa	18 months 6 months	The Manse Oamaru	80/12110	5 July 1880	Rev. A. B. Todd Presbyterian
834	10 July 1880	Nicholas Gusley Catherine Burns	Nicholas Quigley Catherine Burns 💍 1880/2447	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer Servant	30 25	Oamaru Deborah	6 years 14 months	St. Patrick's Church Oamaru	80/12120	10 July 1880	Revd. William Coleman Roman Catholic
835	13 July 1880	Charles Thomas Brett Septimine Turner	Charles Thomas Brett Jepiemine Turner 💍 1880/2526	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer Servant	26 23	White Rocks White Rocks	6 years 9 months	The office of the Registrar of marriages at Oamaru	80/12201	13 July 1880	The Registrar of Marriages at Oamaru
836	19 July 1880	John Carmichael Mary Ann Neil	John Carmichael Mary Ann Neill 💍 1880/2438	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	27 21	Cape Farm Cape Farm	5 months 9 months	The Manse Oamaru	80/12112	19 July 1880	Revd. A. B. Todd Presbyterian
837	19 July 1880	Richard Ridgill Ellen Stevens	Richard Ridgill Ellen Stevens 💍 1880/2437	Bachelor Spinster	Plumber	28 24	Oamaru Oamaru	2 months 6 weeks	The Manse Oamaru	80/12111	19 July 1880	Revd. A. B. Todd Presbyterian
838	23 July 1880	William Steele Eliza Robertson	William Steele Eliza Robertson 💍 1880/2439 William Mason Ellen Robertson 💍 1880/2724 William Crossan Jane Robertson 💍 1880/2468	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	32 24	Oamaru Oamaru	6 years 14 years	The house of John Dorley situated in Torridge St. Oamaru	80/12113	23 July 1880	Revd. A. B. Todd Presbyterian
839	28 July 1880	Thomas Little Harriet Russell	Thomas Little Harriet Russell 💍 1880/2443	Bachelor Spinster	Cook Servant	49 35	Oamaru Oamaru	14 years 3 years	The residence of W. H. Brown - Tyne Street Oamaru	80/12114	28 July 1880	Revd. A. B. Todd Presbyterian

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).