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 539

District of Motueka Quarter ending 30 June 1883 Registrar Joseph Foord Wilson

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
331	17 April 1883	Robert George McNabb Annie Elizabeth Ryder	Robert George McNabb Annie Elizabeth Ryder 💍 1883/2028	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	31 25	Motueka Riwaka	31 years 25 years	St. Thomas Church, Motueka	83/1202		17 April 1883	Rev. Samuel Poole, Minister of Ch. of England
332	21 April 1883	Joshua Thomas Johns Millicent Knight	Joshua Thomas Johns Millicent Knight 💍 1883/2026	Bachelor Spinster	Fruit Preserver	39 31	Motueka Motueka	6 weeks 6 days	House of Mr. Joshua Thomas Johns, Motueka	83/1200		21 April 1883	Rev. Anson Cato, Baptist Minister
333	23 April 1883	George Saunders Eliza Margaret Edelsten	George Saunders Eliza Margaret Edelsten 💍 1883/2029	Bachelor Spinster	Currier	34 21	Motueka Motueka	3 days 2 months	Church of St. Thomas, Motueka	83/1203		23 April 1883	Rev. Samuel Poole, Minister of Ch. of England
334	27 April 1883	William Taylor Mary Davison	William Taylor Junr Mary Davison 💍 1883/2025	Bachelor Widow	Farmer	23 25	Motueka Motueka	23 years 25 years	Registrar's Office, Motueka	83/1199		27 April 1883	Joseph Foord Wilson, Registrar
335	10 May 1883	Charles Green Jane Mickell	Charles Green Jane Mickell 💍 1883/2030	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	26 20	Ngatimoti Riwaka	26 years 20 years	House of Mr. James Mickell, Riwaka	83/1204	James Mickell, Father	10 May 1883	Rev. Samuel Poole, Minister of Ch. of England
336	11 May 1883	Thomas Haines Bessie Thomas	Thomas Haines Bessie Thomas 💍 1883/2027	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Domestic Servant	25 22	Motueka Motueka	4 years 3 years	House of Mr. Louis Francois, Motueka	83/1207		11 May 1883	Rev. Benjamin Thomas, Wesleyan Minister
337	12 May 1883	Reuben Tivini Margaret Riwai	Reuben Tiwini Margaret Riwai 💍 1883/2024	Bachelor Spinster	Half Caste Farmer Aboriginal Native	45 24	Motueka Motueka	40 years 8 years	Registrar's Office, Motueka	83/1198		12 May 1883	Joseph Foord Wilson, Registrar

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).