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 1190

District of Invercargill Quarter ending 31 December 1883 Registrar Arthur Chellas Henderson

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
86	6 October 1883	Francis Meffington Catherine Mullen	Francis Skiffington Catherine Mullan 💍 1883/3638	Bachelor Spinster	Ploughman	27 21	Invercargill New River	7 days 6 months	At the Roman Catholic Church	83/3490		6 October 1883	The Rev Mr. Ready, Roman Catholic Church Minister
87	13 October 1883	Henry Samuel Jones Annie Amelia Gregg formerly Roe	Henry Samuel Jones Annie Amelia Grigg 💍 1883/3272	Widower Widow	Accountant	48 32	Invercargill Invercargill	3 days 9 years	Office of the Registrar	83/3502		13 October 1883	The Registrar
88	19 October 1883	Albert Newman Elizabeth Taylor	Albert Newman Elizabeth Robertson Taylor 💍 1883/3264 Robert Stewart Elizabeth Taylor 💍 1883/3026	Bachelor Spinster	Gardiner	29 24	Gladstone Invercargill	9 years 20 years	At the House of Mr Taylor	83/3495		19 October 1883	The Rev Jno Ferguson, Presbyterian Church Minister
89	22 October 1883	Edward Stapleyn Gobbitt Ellen Henderson Brentifplay	Edward Kapleyn Gobbitt Ellen Henderson Mentiplay 💍 1883/3265	Bachelor Spinster	Oyster Fish Merchant Domestic Servant	30 25	Invercargill Invercargill	3 days 3 days	At the House of Mr Brentifplay	83/3496		22 October 1883	The Rev Jno Ferguson, Presbyterian Church Minister
90	23 October 1883	George Arthur Pollard Alice Dearcy	George Arthur Pollard Alice Pearcey 💍 1883/3323	Bachelor Spinster	Major of the Salvation Army N.G. Durrow	31 30	Invercargill Invercargill	3 days 3 days	At the House of Mr James Paterson	83/3534	James Paterson, Guardian	23 October 1883	The Rev James Paterson, Presbyterian Church Minister
91	23 October 1883	William Durie Jane Milton	William Durie Jane Milton 💍 1883/3302	Bachelor Spinster	Blacksmith	24 26	Invercargill Invercargill	1 month 7 years	At the House of Mr Morrison	83/3574		23 October 1883	The Rev Thos Harrington, Baptist Church Minister

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).