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 523

District of Wairau Quarter ending 31 December 1883 Registrar John James Lindburg White

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
24	8 October 1883	Humphrey O'Leary Ellen Fitzgerald	Humphrey OLeary Ellen Fitzgerald 💍 1883/2948	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Domestic Servant	27 years 20 years	Anatere Blenheim	8 years about 20 years	The Roman Catholic Church, Blenheim	83/12952	Ellen Fitzgerald, mother	8 October 1883	Revd. James Foley
25	31 October 1883	John Wearton James Sarah Ann James	John Wharton James Sarah Ann James 💍 1883/2932	Bachelor Spinster	Storekeeper Domestic Servant	27 years 28 years	Blenheim Blenheim	4 years 4 years	The House of Mr. William Parker, Grove Road, Blenheim	83/12950		31 October 1883	Revd. D. D. McNicholl
26	3 November 1883	Edward Rowe Sarah Jane Hammond	Edward Rowe Sarah Jane Hammond 💍 1883/2943	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	28 years 29 years	Renwick Middle Road Renwick New Road	13 months 11 years	The House of Mr. David Hammond, Renwick New Road	83/12951		3 November 1883	Revd. D. D. McNicholl
27	15 November 1883	Cornelius Morgan Mary O'Connor	Cornelius Horgan Mary OConnor 💍 1883/2949	Widower Spinster	Labourer Domestic Servant	29 years 23 years	Seddon Blenheim	7 years 5 years	Roman Catholic Church, Blenheim	83/12953		15 November 1883	Revd. James Foley
28	19 November 1883	Alexander Le Bas Mary Jones	Alexander Le Bas Mary Jones 💍 1883/2898	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	38 years 36 years	Grovetown Grovetown	6 months 4 years	The Office of the Registrar of Marriages, Blenheim	83/12946		19 November 1883	The Registrar of Marriages, Blenheim
29	19 November 1883	John Jeffrey Durrant Annie Maria Thomas		Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter Domestic Servant	32 years 28 years	Wairau Valley Blenheim	about 4 years about 5 months	The Office of the Registrar of Marriages, Blenheim	83/12947		19 November 1883	The Registrar of Marriages, Blenheim
30	24 November 1883	Matthew Patterson Harriet Horton	Matthew Patterson Hariet Norton 💍 1883/2900	Bachelor Spinster	Bushman	36 years 18 years	Blenheim Blenheim	3 days 14 days	The Office of the Registrar of Marriages, Blenheim	83/12948	James Horton, Father	24 November 1883	The Registrar of Marriages, Blenheim
31	27 November 1883	Whittington Laudon Lane Hannah Henderson	Whittington Landon Lane Hannah Henderson 💍 1883/2901	Bachelor Spinster	Shearer	24 years 24 years	Wairau Blenheim	2 years about 20 years	The Office of the Registrar of Marriages, Blenheim	83/12949		27 November 1883	The Registrar of Marriages, Blenheim
32	13 December 1883	John Heworth Elizabeth Clemens	John Newth Elizabeth Clemens 💍 1883/2895	Bachelor Spinster	Hotelkeeper Domestic Duties	33 years 21 years	Blenheim Shakespeare Bay	13 days about 18 years	The House of Mr. G. W. Clemens, Picton	Picton / 83/12944		13 December 1883	Revd. G. K. Stowell
33	27 December 1883	John Dorm Barbara McKay	John Donn Barbara McKay 💍 1883/2897	Bachelor Spinster	Road Inspector	41 years 32 years	Blenheim Blenheim	3 days 4 months	The House of Mr. Jamieson, Walter Street, Blenheim	83/12945		27 December 1883	Revd. W. O. Robb

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).