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 828

District of Timaru Quarter ending 30 June 1882 Registrar C. E. Cooper

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
374	03 April 1882	John Rice Jaceny Walker Spinder	John Rice Fanny Walker 💍 1882/1429 John Rice Ellen Penn 💍 1882/734	Bachelor	Farm manager	33 23	Marchwiel Marchwiel	9 yrs 4 yrs	St Mary's School Church	82/1449	03 April	Rev. H. W. Harper Church of England
375	03 April 1882	William M'Path Eugenie de Beaune Spindler	William McBeth Eugenie Lebeaux 💍 1882/1445	Bachelor	Merchant	32 24	Lyttleton Christchurch	4 days 4 days	Registrar's Office	82/1451	04 April	Registrar of Marriages Timaru
376	05 April 1882	John O'Connor Margaret O'Neill Spindler	John OConnor Margaret O'Neill 💍 1882/1632 John O'Connor Mary Elizabeth McInroe 💍 1882/3039	Bachelor	Carpenter	26 25	Timaru Timaru	5 yrs 5 yrs	Roman Catholic Church Timaru	82/1461	05 April	Rev. J. B. Chataigner Roman Catholic
377	08 April 1882	Samuel Blyth Georgina Lack Spindler	Samuel Blyth Georgina Lack 💍 1882/1446	Widower	Laborer	29 21	Mt. Horrible Road Mt. Horrible Rd	2 yrs 5 yrs	Registrar's Office	82/1472	08 April	Registrar of Marriages Timaru
378	08 April 1882	Benjamin Edward Hibbard Mary Ann Hibbard Spindler	Benjamin Edward Hibban Mary Ann Cramner 💍 1882/1433	Bachelor	Grocer	21 21	Timaru Timaru	10 yrs 10 yrs	Dwelling House of Munns, Crommond	82/1483	08 April	Rev. Wm. Gillies Presbyterian
379	12 April 1882	William Colly Elizabeth Ann Ellis	William Cody Elizabeth Ann Ellis 💍 1882/1431	Bachelor Spinster	Draper	26 25	Palmerston, South Hornamby	3 days 29 yrs	Residence of Joseph Ellis	82/1481	12 April	Rev. 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 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).