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 261

District of Dunedin Quarter ending 31 March 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
51	20 February 1884	John Thomson Margaret Weir	John Thomson Margret Weir 💍 1884/1759	Bachelor Spinster	Storeman	25 years 25 years	Dunedin Dunedin	4 years 18 years	In the house of James Weir, North East Valley	84/435		20 February 1884	Revd C. E. Ward, Methodist Minister
52	21 February 1884	Hugo Otto Emil Lippert Ada Edwards	Hugo Otto Emil Lippert Ada Edwards 💍 1884/1798	Bachelor Spinster	Postmaster Dressmaker	39 years 28 years	Waihemo Dunedin	3 years 3 months	In St. Pauls Church	84/680		21 February 1884	Ven Archdeacon Edwards, Church of England Minister
53	21 February 1884	Simon Perry Emma Mayne	Simon Perry Emma Mayne 💍 1884/794	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	28 years 19 years	Dunedin Dunedin	20 years 4 years	In Knox Church	84/408	James Mayne, father of Minor	21 February 1884	Revd Dr Stuart, Presbyterian Minister
54	21 February 1884	Christen Christensen Margaret Mary May	Christen Christensen Margaret Mary May 💍 1884/776	Bachelor Spinster	Confectioner	19 years 19 years	St. Kilda Ravensbourne	3 months 2 years	In the house of John May	84/654	Christen Christensen, father of minor; John May, father of minor	21 February 1884	Revd J. Dumbell, Methodist Minister
55	22 February 1884	Timothy John Walsh Marion Marlow	Timothy John Walsh Marion Marlon 💍 1884/779	Bachelor Spinster	Bootmaker	30 years 25 years	Dunedin South Dunedin	23 years 9 years	In St. Patricks Church, South Dunedin	84/699		22 February 1884	Revd W. Burton, Roman Catholic Priest
56	22 February 1884	Charles Bills Elizabeth Johnstone	Charles Mills Elizabeth Johnston 💍 1884/795 Charles Wadie Elizabeth Johnston Garley 💍 1884/3808 Charles Williams Elizabeth Noakes 💍 1884/1632 Charles Millward Elizabeth Burns 💍 1884/974 Charles Sutton Elizabeth Moreton 💍 1885/726 Charles O'Brien Elizabeth McMahon 💍 1885/310	Bachelor Spinster	Printer	22 years 24 years	Dunedin Dunedin	11 years 3 days	In the house of the Revd Dr Stuart	84/409		22 February 1884	Revd Dr Stuart, Presbyterian 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 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).