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 434

District of Wellington Quarter ending [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
238	16 November 1882	Thomas Murphy Bridget Brennan	Thomas Murphy Bridget Brennan 💍 1882/2833	Bachelor Spinster	Labner	24 21	Wellington Wellington	1 year years	St. Mary	82/2806		16 Nov.	Rev. John McNamara
239	17 November 1882	Henry Frost Maud Edwards	Henry Trout Maud Edwards 💍 1882/2946	Bachelor Spinster	Mariner	22 20	Wellington Wellington		Registrar's Office	82/2841	Mary King, mother	17 Nov.	J. G. Holdsworth
240	17 November 1882	John Casey Jane Lynch	John Casey Jane Lynch 💍 1882/2832	Bachelor Spinster	Labner	23 25	Wellington Wellington	3 months years	St. Mary's	82/2805		17 Nov.	Rev. John McNamara
241	18 November 1882	Peter McCurniskey Elizabeth Stobson	Peter McCumiskey Elizabeth Hobson 💍 1882/2952	Bachelor Spinster	Painter	32 29	Wellington Wellington		St. Mary of the Angels	82/2824		18 Nov.	Rev. P. Kerrigan
242	20 November 1882	Michael McGinness Mary Ann Hart	Michael McGuiness Mary Anne Hart 💍 1882/2953	Bachelor Spinster	Butcher	21 19	Wellington Wellington	6 months	St. Mary of the Angels	82/2825	Ellen Charkin, mother	20 Nov.	Rev. P. Kerrigan
243	22 November 1882	William Allen Eliza Ann Steele	William Allen Sarah Jane Coveney 💍 1882/2836	Bachelor Spinster	Draper	28 24	Wellington Wellington	4 years	Rev. Steele's House, Tory Street	82/3037		22 Nov.	Rev. James Paterson
244	25 November 1882	Michael McGrath Louise Jennings	Michael McGrath Louisa Jennings 💍 1882/2954	Bachelor Spinster	Cab Driver	32 24	Wellington Wellington		St. Mary of the Angels	82/2826		25 Nov.	Rev. P. Kerrigan
245	27 November 1882	John Warren Jane Vanes	John Warren Jane Vause 💍 1882/2804 John Warren Mary Ann Lowry 💍 1882/3051	Bachelor Spinster	Mariner	22 21	Wellington Wellington	10 days	Registrar's Office	82/2844		27 Nov.	J. G. Holdsworth
246	29 November 1882	Harry Cooley Elizabeth White	Harry Cooley Elizabeth White 💍 1882/2948	Bachelor Widow	Farmer	24 26	Lower Hutt Lower Hutt	years	Registrar's Office	82/2843		29 Nov.	J. G. Holdsworth
247	29 November 1882	William Allen Sarah Jane Coveney	William Allen Sarah Jane Coveney 💍 1882/2836	Bachelor Spinster	Printer	21 22	Wellington Wellington		St. Pauls Cathedral	82/2809		29 Nov.	Rev. R. J. Thorpe
248	December 1882	John Eason Blackbrown Christma Wink	John Edwin Blackburne Christina Wink 💍 1882/2955	Bachelor Widow	Clerk in Holy Orders	27 25	Upper Hutt Upper Hutt	9 months years	St. John's Church	82/2824		December	Rev. R. J. Thorpe
249	December 1882	William Harris Elizabeth Webb	William Harris Elizabeth Webb 💍 1882/2932 William Winter Eliza Ann Webb 💍 1882/35	Bachelor Spinster	Bricklayer	25 21	Wellington Wellington		St. Mark's Church	82/2819		December	Rev. Richard Coffey

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).