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 839

District of 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
424	07 November 1882	George Gordon Holmes Stannah Main Spinst.	George Gordon Holmes Hannah Mein 💍 1882/3026	Bachelor Spinster	Sheephance	21 25	Pigeon Bay Timaru	3 days 2 yrs	Dwelling house of 10m Mein	82/13149		09 November 1882	Wm Gillies Presbyt
425	10 November 1882	James Hosking Bach Jath. Michelle Spinst		Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	22 20	Timaru Timaru	4 yrs 4	Registrar's Office	82/13146	M.A. Hosking Mother	10 November 1882	C.E. Cooper Registrar
426	17 November 1882	Wm Geo Hartle Bach Louise M Kimber Spinst		Bachelor Spinster	Engine Cleaner	25 30	Timaru Timaru	4 mths 12 mths	Registrar's Office	82/13147		17 November 1882	C.E. Cooper Registrar
427	20 November 1882	Mc Sugrue Bach Julia Cronin Spinst		Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	25 25	Timaru Timaru	7 days 3 days	Roman Catholic Church	82/13160		20 November 1882	Thos Devoy Roman Catholic
428	22 November 1882	Walter Iles Bach Annie Cochrane Spinst	Walter Iles Annie Cochrane 💍 1882/3121	Tailor Spinster	Tailor	23 22	Timaru Timaru	2 mths 10 days	Residence of John Scott	82/13143		22 November 1882	Wm H. Beck Wesleyan
429	23 November 1882	Hull Butyrs Bach Ketitia Cochrane Spinst		Farmer Spinster	Farmer	31 21	Pleasant Point Pleasant Point	7 years 1 mth	Church of England	82/13433		23 November 1882	C. Moloh Church of England
430	23 November 1882	John Smith Bach Emma Raddon Spinst	John Smith Emma Raddon 💍 1882/3006	Farmer Spinster	Farmer	31 24	Saltwater Creek Kingsdown	4 years 4 years	St Mary's School Church	82/13153		23 November 1882	H.W. Harper Church of England

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).