Intentions to Marry, 1883

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840395, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Luke at Archives NZ Wellington, May 16 2025.

Page 201

District of Drury Quarter ending 30 September 1883

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
14/83	17 July 1883	Christopher Cornell Anna Hill	Christopher McConnell Anna Hill 💍 1883/1973	Bachelor Spinster	farmer	28 years 25 years	Pukekohe Pukekohe	7 years 2 months	house of Mr John Allen Pukekohe	83/1850		17 July 1883	Rev J W Dunn, Presbyterian Minister
15/83	18 July 1883	John Orr Mary Nicoll	John Orr Mary Nicoll 💍 1883/1994	Widower Spinster	Merchant	41 years 24 years	Napier Papakura	15 years 13 years	house of Andrew Mcall Papakura	83/1849		18 July 1883	Rev T Norrie, Presbyterian Minister
16/83	28 July 1883	Donald Mackenzie Julia Warden	Donald Mackenzie Julia Worden 💍 1883/1995	Bachelor Spinster	farmer	22 years 20 years	Bombay Bombay	12 years 12 years	house of Richard Warden Bombay	83/1848	Richard Warden, father	28 July 1883	Rev P S Smallfield, Anglican Minister
17/83	1 August 1883	William Joseph Cheeseman Elizabeth Pope	William Joseph Cheeseman Elizabeth Pope 💍 1883/1996	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	26 years 23 years	Remuera Mangatawhiri valley	10 years 9 days	house of Thomas Pope Mangatawhiri	83/1849		1 August 1883	Rev P S Smallfield, Anglican Minister
18/83	3 August 1883	John Hutchison Elizabeth Franks formerly Ward in N	John Paddison Elizabeth Sands 💍 1884/348 John Mitcholson Elizabeth Alley 💍 1883/1781 John Runciman Elizabeth Pearson 💍 1884/883 John Hodson Elizabeth Smith 💍 1883/2307 John Graydon Elizabeth Jones 💍 1883/1635	Bachelor widow	farmer	45 years 37 years	Papakura valley Papakura	6 years 3 years	Registrar's office of Marriages Auckland	83/1887		3 August 1883	J Ford Depy Registrar of Marriages Auckland
19/83	14 August 1883	Henry Mcleod Ann Jane Greer	Henry Wilcox Anne Jane Greer 💍 1883/1992	Bachelor Spinster	farmer	32 years 23 years	Pukekohe East Coromandel	2 years 3 years	Anglican Church Coromandel	83/1845		14 August 1883	R P Walsh, Anglican Minister
20/83	25 September 1883	Matthew Poland Agnes Cummins	Matthew Poland Agnes Cummins 💍 1883/1976	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	25 years 20 years	Tuakau Maketu	8 years 12 years	house of John Cummins Maketu	83/1853	John Cummins, father	24 September 1883	Rev P Costello, Roman Catholic Minister
21/83	26 September 1883	John Castby Alicia Pratt	John Cashey Alicia Pratt 💍 1883/1974	Bachelor Spinster	farmer	24 years 24 years	Maketu Maketu	3 days	house of Registrar Pratt Maketu	83/1857		26 September 1883	Rev P Costello, R.C. Minister
22/83	26 September 1883	John McCabe Bridget Conroy	John McCabe Bridget Conroy 💍 1883/1975	Bachelor Spinster	farmer	35 years 25 years	Maketu Maketu	14 years 17 years	house of Michael Conroy Maketu	83/1852		26 September 1883	Rev P Costello, R.C. Minister

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).