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 574

District of Waimea South Quarter ending 30 June 1882 Registrar Eliab Baigent

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
3	15 April 1882	George Bulmer Tate Frances Wray	George Bulmer Tate Frances May 💍 1882/1211	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	42 29	Dovedale Waimea South Dovedale Waimea South	3 days 5 years	Dovedale Church, Waimea South	82/1234		26 April 1882	Rev. W. R. Whyte
4	15 April 1882	Reuben Kinzett Charlotte Margaret Pahl	Reuben Kinzett Charlotte Margaret Pahl 💍 1882/1208	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	32 17	Tadmor Waimea South Sherry Waimea South	15 years 17 years	The Register Office Wakefield	82/1231	John Frederick Pahl, father	26 April 1882	Eliab Baigent, Registrar of Marriages
5	22 April 1882	George Henry Ashcroft Helen Brunner Bush	George Henry Ashcroft Helen Bowman Bush 💍 1882/1209	Bachelor Spinster	Railway Officer	23 25	Bright Water Waimea South Bright Water	2 days 25 years	St Pauls Church Spring Grove Waimea South	82/1232		26 April 1882	Archdeacon Mules, Church of England
6	25 May 1882	Peter Higgins Martha Dunn	Peter Higgins Martha Ann Lewis 💍 1882/1210	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	23 19	Bell Grove Waimea South Spring Grove, Waimea South	23 years 19 years	Residence of Edward Lewis, Spring Grove	82/1233	Edward Lewis, father	25 May 1882	Rev. John Beckenham, Congregational Independent
7	30 May 1882	John McKenzie Agness S. Kerr	John McKenzie Agnes Elizabeth Ken 💍 1882/1328 John McKenzie Mary Smith 💍 1882/1725	Bachelor Spinster	Butcher	34 25	Waimea South Motupiko Waimea South	3 days 25 years	At the Residence of David Kerr, Motupiko W. S.	82/1235		30 May 1882	Rev. Patrick Calder, Presbyterian
8	17 June 1882	Francis Walstron Martha Alice Currin	Francis Waterhouse Martha Alice Currin 💍 1882/3488	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	23 19	Wakefield Waimea South Wakefield	1 year 19 years	The Register Office Wakefield	82/13519	John Currin, father	17 June 1882	Eliab Baigent Registrar of Marriages

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 1899. More registers are being added almost every week.

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).