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 934

District of Dunedin 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
129	24 April 1882	Edmond Hassett Mary O'Keeffe	Edmond Hassett Mary OKeeffe 💍 1882/1767	Bachelor Spinster	Farm Servant Domestic Servant	26 22	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 3 days	In St. Joseph's Chapel	82/1450		24 April 1882	Revd N. Burke
130	25 April 1882	Thomas Morrison Emma Spencer	Thomas Morrison Emma Spencer 💍 1882/1505	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer Housemaid	21 21	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 3 days	In the Office of the Registrar of Marriages	82/1556		25 April 1882	A. R. Ure
131	25 April 1882	Christopher Henry Roberts Jemima Young Ramsay	Christopher Henry Roberts Jemima Young Ramsay 💍 1882/1611	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	24 20	Dunedin Dunedin	6 years 8 years	In the house of Revd Dr Stuart	82/1588	Isabella Ramsay Mother of Minor	25 April 1882	Revd Dr Stuart
132	25 April 1882	Thomas John Anderson Annie Borland	Thomas John Anderson Annie Borland 💍 1882/1506	Bachelor Spinster	Builder	27 23	Mornington Dunedin	4 years 10 years	In the Office of the Registrar of Marriages	82/1537		25 April 1882	A. R. Ure
133	26 April 1882	John Godfred Nordgren Helen Halker	John Godfred Nordgren Helen Walker 💍 1882/1539	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer Housekeeper	40 39	Broad Bay Broad Bay	6 years 1 month	In the house of Thomas McLennan	82/1539		26 April 1882	Revd A Greig
134	26 April 1882	Henry Howell Secretan Marion Dunn Martin	Henry Howell Secretan Marion Dann Martin 💍 1882/1621	Bachelor Spinster	Agent N.Z. & M.A. Co.	27 21	Dunedin Roslyn	3 days 21 years	In St. Pauls Church	82/1545		26 April 1882	Revd E G Edwards

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).