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 685

District of Kaiapoi Quarter ending 30 September 1882 Registrar Samuel Johnston

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
520	07 July 1882	Charles Henry Wright Margaret Ashland	Charles Henry Wright Margaret Hyland 💍 1882/2036	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk Domestic duties	20 19	Kaiapoi Ohoka	20 years 3 months	Wesleyan Church	82/1271	Robert Marshall Wright, Father. Cecelia Hyland, Mother	07 July 1882	Rev. W.H. Simmons, Wesleyan
521	08 July 1882	Edward Samuel Latter Mary Lissaman	Edward Samuel Latter Mary Lissaman 💍 1882/2060	Bachelor Spinster	Writing Clerk Domestic duties	23 25	Flaxton Flaxton	3 days 2 months	Flaxton Church	82/1282		08 July 1882	Rev. Henry Stocker, Church of England
522	22 July 1882	William Baker Elizabeth Jeffery	William Baker Elizabeth Jeffrey 💍 1882/2059	Bachelor Spinster	Blacksmith Dressmaker	29 23	Kaiapoi Kaiapoi	20 years 4 years	Presbyterian Church	82/1270		22 July 1882	Rev. Robb McGreggor, Presbyterian
523	24 July 1882	George Frederick Williscraft Maria Baynes Thurlow	George Frederick Williscroft Maria Baynes Thurlow 💍 1882/3519	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer General Servant	24 21	Ohoka Kaiapoi	19 years [illegible]	Ohoka Church	82/3524		24 July 1882	Rev. F.R. Inwood, Church of England
524	25 July 1882	Joseph Fitton Elizabeth Alice Moody	Joseph Fitten Elizabeth Alice Moody 💍 1882/2039	Bachelor Spinster	Chairman Domestic duties	26 22	Kaiapoi Kaiapoi	3 days 4 years	Church of England, Kaiapoi	82/1274		25 July 1882	Rev. D.O. Hampton

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).