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 1171

District of Invercargill Quarter ending 31 March 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
1	24 January 1883	John Buckley Annie McKendry	John Buckley Anne McKendry 💍 1883/768	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer Cook	28 24	Invercargill Invercargill	1 week 10 months	At the Roman Catholic Church	83/159		24 January 1883	Revd. J. Monroe, Roman Catholic Minister
2	3 February 1883	John Hamilton Agnes Graham Marshall	John Hamilton Agnes Graham Marshall 💍 1883/748	Bachelor Spinster	Commercial Traveller	35 26	Invercargill Invercargill	3 years 23 years	At the house of Mrs Marshall	83/455		3 February 1883	Revd. J. Paterson, Presbyterian Minister
3	5 February 1883	Thomas Shepherd Milne Mary Ann Smith	Thomas Shepherd Milne Mary Ann Smith 💍 1883/827 James Thomas Pratt Mary Ann Smith 💍 1883/2077	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	24 22	Woodlands One Tree Point	18 years 22 years	At the house of Alexander Smith	83/443		5 February 1883	Revd. J. Alexander, Presbyterian Minister
4	6 February 1883	John Affleck Catherine McGuiness	John Affleck Catherine McGuiness 💍 1883/759	Bachelor Spinster	Blacksmith Domestic Servant	24 23	Invercargill Invercargill	3 years 5 years	At the house of Mrs Gellatly	83/456		6 February 1883	Revd. J. Patterson, Presbyterian Minister
5	7 February 1883	George Ward Ellen Scully	George Ward Ellen Scully 💍 1883/835	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer Domestic Servant	33 19	Invercargill Invercargill	14 days 5 weeks	At the office of the Registrar	83/450	Mary Scully, mother	7 February 1883	Arthur C. Henderson, Registrar
6	12 February 1883	John Thompson Kate Agnes Nutsford	John Thompson Kate Agnes Nutsford 💍 1883/838	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer Domestic Servant	24 23	Ryal Bush Ryal Bush	20 years 3 days	At the office of the Registrar	83/453		12 February 1883	Arthur C. Henderson, Registrar

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).