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 539

District of Wairau Quarter ending

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
21	04 September 1882	John Herd Elizabeth Emily Newman	John Herd Elizabeth Emily Newman 💍 1882/2259	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	28 26	Meadow Bank Cowslip Valley, Omaka	16 years 20 years	The House of Mr John Newman	82/12084	John Newman, Father	September	Rev. W. O. Robb
22	16 September 1882	George Main Alice Thomson	George Main Alice Thomson 💍 1882/2323	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	33 18	Marlborough Town Marlborough Town	15 years 2 years	The House of Mrs Hathaway	82/12083	Robert Thomson, Father	16 September	Rev. Arthur Hermon
23	20 September 1882	Francis Sutton Jane Chamberlain Hickman	Francis Sutton Jane Chamberlain Hickman 💍 1882/2277	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	31 21	Glenwood, Waikakaho Glenwood, Waikakaho	20 years 2 years	The office of the Registrar of Marriages	82/12089		20 September	The Registrar of Marriages, Blenheim.
24	21 September 1882	Charles Pickering Matilda Adelaide Severne	Charles Pickering Matilda Adelaide Severne 💍 1882/2270	Bachelor Spinster	Bushman	23 21	Havelock Valley Field	17 years 1 year	Office of the Registrar of Marriages, Blenheim	82/12088		21 September	The Registrar of Marriages, Blenheim.
25	25 September 1882	Walter Eyles Mary Thomas	Walter Eyles Mary Thomas 💍 1882/2279	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	26 27	Wairau Blenheim	23 years 4 years	The House of Mrs Ann Thomas	82/12091		25 September	The Rev. D. In. Nicholl
26	25 September 1882	Angelo Brunetti Jane Lovekin	Angello Brunetti Jane Lovekin 💍 1882/2987	Bachelor Spinster	Master Mariner Cook	29 22	Blenheim Blenheim	14 weeks 3 years	The Roman Catholic Church	82/12934		25 September	The Rev. James Foley

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).