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 481

District of Napier Quarter ending 31 March 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
19	15 February 1883	James Williamson Emma Beck Newton Bedingfield	James Williamson Emma Beecher Hamilton Bettingfield 💍 1883/425	Bachelor Spinster	Cabinet Maker	28 18	Napier Napier	7 years 4 years	King's Cottage, Napier	83/344	Bedingfield, mother	15 February 1883	Rev D Sidey, Presbyterian
20	27 February 1883	William Fulton Linda Maria Weber	Arthur Robert William Fulton Linda Marie Weber 💍 1883/433	Bachelor Spinster	Civil Engineer	29 19	Napier Napier	3 days 19 years	St John's Church	83/351	Weber, Father	27 February 1883	Rev De Berdt Hovell, English Church
21	2 March 1883	Thomas William Broadfield Elizabeth Joop	Thomas William Broadfield Elizabeth Toop 💍 1883/393	Bachelor Widow	Laborer	47 38	Napier Napier	5 days 16 years	House of Mrs Joop	83/352		2 March 1883	Rev C H Luke, English Church
22	6 March 1883	Jonathan Mann Sophia Hutchin	Jonathan Mann Sophia Hutchins 💍 1883/438	Widower Widow	Porter	80 56	Napier Napier	2 years 8 years	House of Mrs Hutchin, Carlyle Street	83/334		6 March 1883	Rev E O Perry, Primitive Methodist
23	12 March 1883	Robert Brent Browne Barbara Hamilton	Robert Grant Browne Barbara Hamilton 💍 1883/436	Bachelor Spinster	Painter	22 20	Napier Napier	7 years 3 1/2 years	House of R B Browne	83/331		12 March 1883	Rev J Campbell, Presbyterian
24	17 March 1883	John Fenwick Elizabeth Ann Harvey	John Fenwick Elizabeth Ann Harvey 💍 1883/427 John Donovan Elizabeth Harvey 💍 1883/2049	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	28 21	Port Ahuriri Port Ahuriri	4 years 7 years	House of Rev D Sidey	83/346		17 March 1883	Rev D Sidey, Presbyterian
25	27 March 1883	Frank Clifford Elizabeth Shappord	Frank Clifford Elizabeth Stafford 💍 1883/419	Bachelor Spinster	Bushman	26 26	Napier Napier	3 days 3 days	Wesleyan Parsonage	83/334		27 March 1883	Rev J S Lewis, Wesleyan Parsonage

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).