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 427

District of Wellington Quarter ending 30 September 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	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
158	11 July 1882	Peter Hudson Mary Stapleton	Peter Hutson Mary Stapleton 💍 1882/2698	Bachelor Spinster	Bricklayer	31 27	Wellington Wellington	years	Johnstone	82/2042	5 August 1882	Rev James Paterson
159	13 July 1882	Alexander Waters Jessie eté Laren	Alexander Waters Jessie McLaren 💍 1882/2699	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	27 23	Ohariu Ohariu		House of [illegible]	82/2043	9 August 1882	Rev James Paterson
160	14 July 1882	Richard Appleton Florence Isabel		Bachelor Spinster	Grocer	74 20	Wellington Wellington		St Marks	82/2050	10 August 1882	Rev Richard Coffey
161	15 July 1882	Henry James White Blanche Cordelia James	Henry James White Blanche Aroada Inness 💍 1882/1983	Divorced Spinster	Builder	35 23			Church	82/2030	15 August 1882	Rev J. Hinton
162	15 July 1882	John Williams Grace Power	John Williams Grace Diver 💍 1882/1853	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	34 27			Name & [illegible]	82/2017	15 August 1882	Rev P. Kerrigan
163	17 August 1882	James John Urquhart Elizabeth Ann Henderson	James John Urquhart Elizabeth Ann Henderson 💍 1882/1963	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	26 23		1 week Years	St Peters Church	82/2021	17 August 1882	Ven Archdeacon Stock
164	17 July 1882	John Latham Emily Pritchard	John Latham Emily Prestidge 💍 1882/2841	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk	36 23		years	Wick St Peters	82/2021	17 August 1882	Rev S. E. Gee
165	18 July 1882	Aquila Lindsay Annie Pritchard	Alfred Lindsay Annie Pritchard 💍 1882/2445	Bachelor Spinster	Reefwater	21 21			Church	82/2813	19 August 1882	Rev W. N. West
166	21 July 1882	John Colin Anderson Julia Chance	John Collings Maxham Julia Chance 💍 1882/2443	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	22 23			House of [illegible]	82/2576	22 August 1882	Rev Richard Coffey
167	22 July 1882	Thomas Harty Bran Eliza Hylands	Thomas Horby Brown Eliza Hyland 💍 1882/1854	Widower Spinster	Butcher	24 18			Church	82/2532	22 August 1882	Rev P. Kerrigan
168	25 July 1882	Henry Irvine Annie Smith	Alexander Brown Annie Smith 💍 1882/1078 Frank Walter Rayner Annie Smith 💍 1882/201	Bachelor Spinster	Coachbuilder	21 22			[illegible] Mary of [illegible]	82/1983	23 August 1882	[illegible] Stock
169	26 July 1882	Henry Cunningham Amelia Webb	Harry Cunningham Amelia Webb 💍 1882/1969	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	31 21			St Peters	82/2022	23 August 1882	Rev W. Cannell

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).