Intentions to Marry, 1884

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840396, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Luke at Archives NZ Wellington, April 30 2025

Page 652

District of Wairau Quarter ending 31 December 1884

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
25	22 October 1884	Thomas Lacey Mary Ann Harriet Sarah Gibson	Thomas Lacey Mary Ann Harriet Sarah Gibson 💍 1884/3319	Widower Spinster	Labourer Domestic Servant	36 years 20 years	Blenheim Grove Town	1 quarter 20 years	The House of Mr. George Gibson Grove Town	84/3198	George Gibson, Father	22 October 1884	Revd. D. Inv. Liddell
26	29 October 1884	Charles Montrose Jenkins Janet Gillespie	Charles Montrose Jenkins Janet Gillespie 💍 1884/3300 Charles Clark Janet Gillespie 💍 1884/3157	Bachelor Spinster	Printer	23 years 21 years	Blenheim Blenheim	3 days 21 years	The House of Mr. Gillespie Maxwell Road	84/3202		29 October 1884	Revd. W. O. Robb
27	22 November 1884	James Edward Bleary Mary Dalziel	James Edward Cleary Mary Dalziel 💍 1884/3299	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	21 years 21 years	Old Renwick Road Old Renwick Road	17 years 21 years	The House of Mr. James Dalziel New Renwick Road	84/3201		22 November 1884	Revd. James Foley
28	28 November 1884	William Alfred Norman Horali Miller		Bachelor Spinster	Grocer Assistant	20 years 16 years	Grove Road Blenheim Picton	about 7 years 16 years	The House of Mr. John Miller Picton	84/3195	William Downson Father, John Miller Father	28 November 1884	Revd. G. K. Stavell
29	13 December 1884	John Smith Mary Bennett	John Smith Margaret Wade 💍 1884/2585 John Smith Margaret Lyall 💍 1885/723	Bachelor Widow	Labourer Dressmaker	50 years 51 years	Arthur Street Blenheim Arthur Street Blenheim	about 16 months about 16 months	The Presbyterian Manse Blenheim	84/3199		13 December 1884	Revd. W. O. Robb
30	15 December 1884	George Edwin Fleming Margaret Lawson	George Edwin Fleming Margaret Lawson 💍 1884/3318	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer Kaituna	26 years 20 years	Renwick Town Kaituna	8 years 10 years	The House of Mr. Beatson Lawson Kaituna	84/3197	Beatson Lawson Father	15 December 1884	Revd. G. K. Stavell
31	24 December 1884	Thomas Shaw Aroa Mary Hickman	Thomas Shaw Aroa Mary Hickman 💍 1884/3301	Bachelor Spinster	Seaman Domestic Servant	25 years 22 years	Grove Town Grove Town	22 years 5 years	The Office of the Registrar of Marriages Blenheim	84/3203		24 December 1884	The Registrar of Marriages Blenheim

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 1894. More registers will be added as the project continues.

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).