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 867

District of Oamaru Quarter ending 31 December 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
1076	2 October 1883	Roderick McTavish Jessie Nichol Cormack	Roderick McTavish Jessie Nichol Cormack 💍 1883/3526	Bachelor Spinster	Draper Dressmaker	28 19	Oamaru Oamaru	15 months 9 years	The residence of Mr Peter Cormack, Wharf Street, Oamaru	83/3284	Peter Cormack, father	2 October 1883	Revd. James Macgregor D.D., Presbyterian
1077	11 October 1883	Thomas Evans Mary Attwell	Thomas Evans Mary Attiwell 💍 1883/3503	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer Servant	29 19	Oamaru Oamaru	3 days 3 days	The office of the Registrar of Marriages, Oamaru	83/3299	Elizabeth Attwell, mother	11 October 1883	The Registrar of Marriages, Oamaru
1078	16 October 1883	James Nicholes Annie McGregor	James Nichols Annie Macgregor 💍 1883/3416	Bachelor Spinster	Blacksmith Dressmaker	27 19	Oamaru Oamaru	20 months 5 years	St Paul's Church, Manse, Oamaru	83/3276	John McGregor, Father	16 October 1883	Revd. A. B. Todd, Presbyterian
1079	16 October 1883	William Hudson Ellen Reid	William Hudson Ellen Reid 💍 1883/3321	Bachelor Spinster	Engineer	24 19	Oamaru Oamaru	10 days 10 years	St Luke's Church, Oamaru	83/3532	James Reid, Father	16 October 1883	Revd. Algernon Gifford, Church of England
1080	19 October 1883	Jeremiah Black Sarah Hollow	Jeremiah Black Sarah Hollow 💍 1883/3514	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	25 21	Oamaru Oamaru	9 years 9 years	The office of the Registrar of Marriages, Oamaru	83/3280		19 October 1883	The Registrar of Marriages, Oamaru
1081	23 October 1883	James Cartwright Julia Howers	James Cartwright Julia Houren 💍 1883/3525	Widower Spinster	Railway Porter Servant	32 28	Oamaru Oamaru	3 1/2 years 6 months	St Patrick's Church, Oamaru	83/3284		23 October 1883	Revd. William Coleman, Roman Catholic
1082	6 November 1883	Edwin Collis Catherine Stewart Clarke	Edwin Collis Catherine Stewart Clarke 💍 1883/3504	Bachelor Spinster	Warehouseman Music Teacher	48 38	Oamaru Oamaru	23 years 4 years	The residence of Mrs Mitchell, Eyre Street, Oamaru	83/3288		6 November 1883	Revd. James Macgregor D.D., Presbyterian
1083	7 November 1883	Otto Schwiers Georgiana McIntosh	Otto Schweers Georgiana McIntosh 💍 1883/3517	Bachelor Spinster	Milliner	29 25	Oamaru Oamaru	10 years	The office of the Registrar of Marriages, Oamaru	83/3280		7 November 1883	The Registrar of Marriages, Oamaru, Dunedin 3307

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).