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 852

District of Oamaru Quarter ending [illegible] Registrar [illegible]

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
955	01 April 1882	John Thompson Janet Smart	John Thompson Janet Smart 💍 1882/1719	Widower Widow	Carpenter	52 37	Oamaru Oamaru	21 years 20 years	At the residence of Janet Smart Eden Street Oamaru	82/1500		01 April 1882	Rev. John Foster Congregationalist
956	01 April 1882	John Robert Smith Elizabeth Cookson	John Robert Smith Elizabeth Cookson 💍 1882/1713	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer Servant	23 21	Oamaru Oamaru	2 years 18 months	At the residence of James Lindsay Eden Street Oamaru	82/1501		04 April 1882	Rev. James Clover Primitive Methodist
957	08 April 1882	John Campbell Agnes Wileylie	John Campbell Agnes Wylie 💍 1882/1720 John Campbell Annie Maganagae 💍 1882/921 John Campbell Mary Driscole 💍 1882/3344 John Campbell Jane McElroy 💍 1882/2531 John Campbell Isabella Nichol Anderson 💍 1882/2842 John Campbell Sarah McFarlane 💍 1883/630	Widower Widow	Stonemason	54 45	Kakanui Kakanui	16 years 7 years	The Manse	82/1501		08 April 1882	Rev. A. B. Todd Presbyterian
958	12 April 1882	George Cottername Susan Duff	George Cottonam Susan Duff 💍 1882/1698	Bachelor Spinster	Ploughman Servant	28 28	Oamaru Oamaru	14 days 3 years	The Manse	82/1502		18 April 1882	Rev. A. B. Todd Presbyterian
959	12 April 1882	Robert Dales Mary McKenzie	Robert John Baker Mary McKenzie 💍 1882/566	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer Servant	25 18	Oamaru Oamaru	5 years 15 months	The Manse	82/1503	John McKenzie Father	19 April 1882	Rev. A. B. Todd Presbyterian
960	14 April 1882	Henry Bottle Mary Ann Burns	Henry Bottle Mary Ann Burns 💍 1882/3618	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer Servant	23 22	Teaneraki Teaneraki	3 years 8 months	The Manse	82/1576		19 April 1882	Rev. James Cameron Presbyterian
961	27 April 1882	Neil Blair Austin Bridget Sweeney	Neil Blair Austin Bridget Sweeney 💍 1882/1893	Bachelor Spinster	Bootmaker Domestic Servant	22 27	Oamaru Oamaru	2 years 4 years	The residence of the Rev. D. Coleman	82/1429		27 April 1882	Rev. D. Coleman Roman Catholic
962	01 May 1882	John Morrison Dick Rebecca Smith	John Morrison Dick Rebecca Smith 💍 1882/1715	Bachelor Spinster	Tailor	27 18	Oamaru Oamaru	2 years 1 year	The office of the Registrar of Marriages	82/1494	Isaac Smith Father	01 May 1882	The Registrar of Marriages at Oamaru

These records have been automatically transcribed and must be verified using the page image (below)

100% Contrast

100% Brightness

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).