Intentions to Marry, 1881

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840393, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Luke at Archives NZ Wellington, January 31 2025

Page 360

District of Wanganui Quarter ending 30 September 1881

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
47	2 September 1881	James McGreevy Eliza Jeeves	James McGregor Eliza Jeeves 💍 1881/1739	Bachelor Spinster	Sailor	23 21	Do Wanganui	15 yrs 4 weeks	In the house of Mr John Mc Greevy Marton	81/1463		2 September 1881	Rev. Wm Stewart
48	9 September 1881	Charles Smith Mary Blythe	Charles Smith Mary Blythe 💍 1881/1715	Bachelor Spinster	Blacksmith	22 19	Wanganui Wanganui	3 yrs 10 yrs	In the house of Mr Blythe			9 September 1881	Rev. W. J. Williams
49	10 September 1881	Edward George Fox Louisa Sarah Davison		Bachelor Spinster	Banker	23 19	Do Wanganui	2 1/2 yrs 3 days	In the Church Foxton	81/1469		24 September 1881	Rev. E. L. Tudor
50	20 September 1881	John Stewart Mary Sophia Read	John Stewart Amy Sophia Read 💍 1881/1744	Bachelor Spinster	Butcher	70 18	Wanganui Wanganui	16 yrs 4 yrs	In the office of the Registrar of Marriages, Wanganui			20 September 1881	J. Mora
51	27 September 1881	Michael Dowd Christina Christie	Michael David O'Connor Christina Christie 💍 1881/2488	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	41 26	Wanganui Wanganui	10 yrs 15 yrs	In the office of the Registrar of Marriages, Wanganui	81/2541		27 September 1881	J. Mora
52	28 September 1881	Dan Richardson Eliza Wesley	Dan Richardson Eliza Wasley 💍 1881/2477	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	19 17	Fordell Fordell	12 mos 1 mo	In the Roman Catholic Church, Wanganui		John Wesley, Father	28 September 1881	Rev. C. H. Kirk
53	30 September 1881	James Knox Alice Burns	James Knox Alice Barnes 💍 1881/2508	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	34 22	Wanganui Wanganui	7 yrs 22 yrs	In the Residence of James Burns, Springvale	81/2568		30 September 1881	Rev. James Treadwell

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

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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 1894. More registers will be added as the project continues.

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).