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 819

District of Timaru 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
311	5 July 1881	Nicolaus Ludwig Friedrick Müller Elizabeth Norris Mansfield	Nicolaus Ludvig Friederich Muller Elizabeth Norris Mansfield 💍 1881/2068	Bachelor Spinster	Teacher	29 20	Timaru Timaru	7 years 15 years	Residence of Elizabeth Ramsey, Brown St, Timaru	81/2105	None in the Colony	July 5th 1881	Wm Gillies Presbyterian
312	9 July 1881	Alexander Brown Eliza Melton	Alexander Brown Eliza Melton 💍 1881/2060	Bachelor Spinster	Blacksmith	26 18	Levels Station Levels Station	3 years 1 year	Registrar's Office, Timaru	81/2094	Wm Melton, Father	9 July 1881	C. E. Cooper, Registrar of Marriages, Timaru
313	18 July 1881	Daniel Mahoney Maria Dillon	Daniel Mahoney Maria Dillon 💍 1881/2062	Bachelor Spinster	Farming Contractor	24 24	Timaru Timaru	3.5 years 3 years	Roman Catholic Church, Timaru	81/2099		18 July 1881	J. B. Chataigner, Roman Catholic Minister
314	25 July 1881	Wilhelm Arras Theresa Jones	William Arras Theresa Jones 💍 1881/2061	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	28 22	Levels Plains Sandie Town	11 years 3 years	Presbyterian Church, Pleasant Point	81/2098		25 July 1881	Donald McLennan, Presbyterian
315	27 July 1881	Charles Schroder Jane Maclean	Charles Schroder Jane Maclean 💍 1881/2069	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	33 39	Timaru Timaru	3 months 2 years	The Presbyterian Manse, Timaru	81/2106		27 July 1881	Wm Gillies, Presbyterian
316	5 August 1881	Philip Henry Cook Ann Goodman	Philip Henry Cock Ann Goodman 💍 1881/2078	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	22 19	Woolcombe's Gully Timaru	12 months 19 years	Dwelling House of Rev W. H. Beck, Timaru	81/2091	John Goodman, Father	5 August 1881	W. H. Beck, Wesleyan

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).