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 1193

District of Invercargill 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
104	1st November 1883	Robert McIntosh Annie Elizabeth Craig	Robert McIntosh Annie Elizabeth Craig 💍 1883/3639	Bachelor Domestic Spinster	Farm Labourer Servant	21 21	Invercargill Invercargill	3 days 3 days	Office of the Registrar	83/3507		1st November 1883	The Registrar Invercargill
105	3rd December 1883	William Smith Jessie Ann Lang	William Smith Jessie Ann Laing Sievwright 💍 1883/3325 William Smith Minnie Rose Corbett 💍 1883/3624 William Smith Mary Buckman 💍 1883/467	Bachelor Spinster	Gardiner Servant	22 21	Avenal Avenal	14 months 18 months	At the house of John Sewright	83/3536		3rd December 1883	The Rev J. Paterson Presbyterian Church minister
106	4th December 1883	Patrick Cauly Catherine O'Regan	Patrick Hanley Catherine O'Regan 💍 1883/3262	Bachelor Spinster	Settler Cook	24 30	Invercargill North Invercargill	3 days 6 years	At the Roman Catholic Church	83/3493	Michael O'Regan father	4th December 1883	The Rev Mr. Burke Roman Catholic Church Invercargill
107	10th December 1883	David Jus Annie Black	David Jess Anne Black 💍 1883/3280	Bachelor Spinster	Lighthouse Keeper Dog Island	26 22	Invercargill Invercargill	3 days 10 days	At the house of Mr. Wright Leaded	83/3487		10th December 1883	The Rev D. Stocker Church of England minister
108	11th December 1883	James Gray Ellen Carr	James Gray Helen Marr 💍 1883/3297 James Gray Annie McCormick 💍 1883/2975	Widower Spinster	Bootmaker Domestic Servant	65 65	East Invercargill East Invercargill	21 years 6 years	At the office of the Registrar	83/3508		11th December 1883	The Registrar Invercargill
109	19th December 1883	Wilfred Wolfe Jane McDonald	Wilfred Wolf Jane McDonald 💍 1883/3326	Bachelor Spinster	Gardener Matron of Hospital	34 27	do Invercargill	4 years 6 years	At the Invercargill Hospital	83/3537		19th December 1883	The Rev Jas Paterson Presbyterian Church minister

These records have been automatically transcribed and must be verified using the page image (below)

100% Contrast

100% Brightness

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).