Intentions to Marry, 1882

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840394, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Carole at Archives NZ Wellington, April 16 2025

Page 407

District of Palmerston North Quarter ending 31 December 1882

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
84	12 October 1882	John William Tuley Mary Ann Peck	John William Duley Mary Anne Peck 💍 1882/3489	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter Domestic Servant	40 19	Palmerston North Palmerston North	18 months 9 years	Reeves' Home	82/3550	Richard Peck, father	18 October 1882	Rev. S. Griffith
85	21 October 1882	Nils Jenssen Emma Amy Ann Stephenson	Fritz Jenssen Emma Amy Ann Stephenson 💍 1882/3549	Bachelor Spinster	Civil Engineer	40 26	Palmerston North Palmerston North	11 years 10 months	All Saints Church	82/3580	[illegible]	21 October 1882	Rev. L. Caus Wilson
86	28 October 1882	Volle Callesen Emma Damler	Volle Callesen Emma Damler 💍 1882/2850	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	23 17	Stoney Creek, Palmerston North Stoney Creek, Palmerston North	10 months 6 years	Reeves' Home	82/2799	August Damler, father	28 October 1882	Rev. Christopher Gaustad
87	23 November 1882	Innes Henry Hickling Mary Ann Hoskins		Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	49 19	Palmerston North Palmerston North	3 weeks 4 years	Reeves' Home	82/2798	Charles Hoskins, father	23 November 1882	Rev. S. Griffith
88	24 November 1882	Jonathan Sharman Ann Hodges	Jonathan Sharman Ann Hodges 💍 1882/3550	Widower Widow	Gardener	60 58	Palmerston North Palmerston North	4 years 3 years	All Saints Church, Palmerston	82/3581		24 November 1882	Rev. L. Caus Wilson
89	5 December 1882	Nils Petersen Alberta Pedersen	Nils Petterson Alberta Pederson 💍 1882/2848	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	31 17	Karere Karere	4 months 1 month	Lutheran Church	82/2797	Jurgen Pedersen, father	5 December 1882	Rev. C. Gaustad
90	6 December 1882	George Ernest Catron Sarah Jane Alderson	George Ernest Osborne Sarah Jane Alderson 💍 1882/2852	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	22 26	Palmerston North Palmerston North	6 years 12 years	Registrar's Office	82/2801		6 December 1882	Robert N. Keeling, Registrar
91	9 December 1882	Henry Hopkins Annie McGregor	Henry Hopkins Annie McGregor 💍 1882/2853	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	25 17	Aorangi Palmerston North	1 year 3 days	Registrar's Office, Palmerston North	82/2802	William McGregor, father	9 December 1882	Robert N. Keeling, Registrar

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 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).