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 865

District of Oamaru 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
1070	28 August 1883	John Oscar Manley Ruth Williams	John Oscar Manley Ruth Williams 💍 1883/2413	Widower Spinster	Railway Guard Servant	30 21	Oamaru Oamaru	3 years 14 days	The Office of the Registrar of Marriages at Oamaru	83/2334		28 August 1883	The Registrar of Marriages at Oamaru
1071	30 August 1883	William Bain Maggie McIntosh	William Bain Maggie MacKintosh 💍 1883/2417	Bachelor Spinster	Ironmonger	26 19	Oamaru Oamaru	6 years 17 years	Columba Church	83/2338	Father	30 August 1883	Revd. James Macgregor D.D. Presbyterian
1072	3 September 1883	Alexander Mackie Mary Margaret Aitken	Alexander Mackie Mary Margaret Aitken 💍 1883/2415	Widower Spinster	Bootmaker Dressmaker	52 44	Oamaru Oamaru	3 years 12 years	At the residence of Henry Aitken, Tyne Street, Oamaru	83/2336		3 September 1883	Revd. A. B. Todd Presbyterian
1073	12 September 1883	William McMillan Catherine Ellen Hutchison	William McMillan Catherine Helen Hutchison 💍 1883/2426	Bachelor Spinster	Shepherd Servant	21 20	Awamoa Awamoa	7 days	The house of Mr. Archibald Hutchison, Awamoa	83/2323	Father	12 September 1883	Revd. John Steven Presbyterian
1074	19 September 1883	William Scarf Julia Eliza Denton	William Scarf Julia Eliza Denton 💍 1883/2422	Bachelor Spinster	Butcher	25 19	Oamaru Oamaru	3 days 14 days	St. Luke's Church	83/2342	A. J. Denton, Father	19 September 1883	Revd. Herman Gifford Church of England
1075	27 September 1883	James John Ardagh Annie Eliza Ford	James John Ardagh Annie Eliza Ford 💍 1883/3524	Bachelor Spinster	Bootmaker Teacher	30 19	Ngapara Oamaru	6 years 13 years	St. Patrick's Church	83/2283	Patrick Ford, Father	27 September 1883	Revd. William Coleman Roman Catholic

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).