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 1159

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
1st	17 March 1882	William Calder Mary Incready formerly Brown	William Calder Mary McReady 💍 1882/1105	Bachelor Widow	Farmer Domestic Servant	38 34	Invercargill Invercargill	3 days at the house of Am. Nat, Invercargill 3 months		82/823		1st March 1882	Rev. J. Paterson Presbyterian Minister
9th	18 March 1882	James Anderson Margaret M'Kinven	James Anderson Margaret McKinven 💍 1882/1112 Walter Anderson Margaret Greer 💍 1882/744 John August Anderson Margaret Maloney 💍 1882/693	Bachelor Spinster	Sheep farmer	27 18	Invercargill Invercargill	3 days House of A. Anderson 3 days Avenal		82/824	Neil M'Kinven Father	9th March 1882	Rev. J. Paterson Presbyterian Minister
13th	19 March 1882	Timothy M'Mahon Ellen O'Neill	Timothy McMahon Ellen ONeill 💍 1882/817 Charles Richardson Ellen O'Neill 💍 1882/2145	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Domestic Servant	31 26	Invercargill Invercargill	2 weeks at the Roman Catholic Church 3 years Invercargill		82/817		13th March 1882	Rev. D. M'Enroe R. C. Minister Invercargill
13th	20 March 1882	Samuel Brown Elizabeth Park	Samuel Brown McDonald Elizabeth Park 💍 1882/807	Widower Spinster	Farmer	39 22	Invercargill Invercargill	3 days of Ellis North Kelvin Street 6 months Invercargill	At the house	82/808		13th March 1882	Rev. Mr. Ferguson Presbyterian Minister
14th	21 March 1882	Robert Matthews Jemima Jane O'Neill	Robert Matthews Jemima Jane O'Neill 💍 1882/822	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer Domestic Servant	34 21	Invercargill Invercargill	3 days at the Office of the Registrar 3 days of Clarence, Invercargill		82/799		14th March 1882	Registrar
15th	22 March 1882	Thomas Rogerson Jessie Burnett	Thomas Rogerson Jessie Burnett 💍 1882/806	Bachelor Spinster	Shepherd	26 20	Glenham Oteramika	1 month at the house of Rev. J. Ferguson 3 months Invercargill		82/804	Walter Burnett Father	15th March 1882	Rev. J. Ferguson Presbyterian Minister Invercargill

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).