Intentions to Marry, 1885

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840397, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Carole at Archives NZ Wellington, April 30 2025

Page 1196

District of Quarter ending

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
393	22 April 1885	How Chow Sophia West	How Chow Sophia West 💍 1885/1135	Bachelor Spinster	book Domestic Servant	39 27	Gisborne Poverty Bay Gisborne Poverty Bay	4 years 1 year	The Office of the Registrar of Marriages at Gisborne	85/1124		22 April 1885	The Registrar of Marriages at Gisborne
394	11 May 1885	John Ditzell Elizabeth Jane Malcoomb	John Fitzell Jane Elizabeth McCoomb 💍 1885/1113	Bachelor Spinster	Labour	24 18	Ormond Ormond	3 years 3 years	St. Andrews Church at Gisborne	85/1126	Robert Malcoomb, Father	11 May 1885	The Rev. John McIlco
395	26 May 1885	Francis Robert Elliott Arthur Juliet Leonora Brown		Bachelor Spinster	Sheep farmer	27 22	Whatatutu Poverty Bay Gisborne Poverty Bay	10 years 4 years	The Residence of Mr. Possman	85/1127		26 May 1885	The Rev. John McIlco
396	9 June 1885	John Fitzsimons Sarah Ann Cooper	John Fitzsimmons Sarah Ann Cooper 💍 1885/1115	Bachelor Spinster	Groom Domestic Servant	26 26	Te Araroa Poverty Bay Waerenga-a-hika Poverty Bay	2 weeks 4 years	The Residence of Mrs. A. Cooper at Waerenga-a-hika	85/1128		9 June 1885	The Rev. J. Elliot Fox
397	13 June 1885	William John Brown Lucy Armstrong	William John Brown Lucy Armstrong 💍 1885/1116	Bachelor Spinster	Sheep farmer	27 23	Rakeiketera Poverty Bay Rakeiketera Poverty Bay	11 years 23 years	The residence of the Bridegroom at Rakeiketera	399		13 June 1885	The Rev. Rutene te Rihia
398	15 June 1885	John Alfred Harding Georgina Pyle	John Alfred Harding Georgina Ryland 💍 1885/1117	Bachelor Spinster	Station Manager	32 22	Waipiro Tokomaru	9 years 22 years	Holy Trinity Church at Gisborne	85/1130		15 June 1885	The Ven. Archdeacon Williams

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 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).