Intentions to Marry, 1886

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840398, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Luke at Archives NZ Wellington, May 14 2025

Page 1430

District of Timaru Quarter ending 31 December 1886

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
139	26 October 1886	Henrich Rohon Balbena Morris	Heinrich Kohn Balbina Morris 💍 1886/3220	Widower Spinster	Jeweller	41 23	Auckland Pleasant Point	3 days 10 years	Dwelling house of Isaac Lewis Morris	86/3208		26 October 1886	Rev Isaac Zachariah, Jewish
140	8 November 1886	John Wreford Tomewell Annie McDonald	John Wilfred Timewell Annie McDonald 💍 1886/3190	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	29 27	Totara Valley Timaru	4 years 2 years	Dwelling house of Elizabeth McDonald, Banks Street	86/3200		8 November 1886	Rev Wm Gillies, Presbyterian
141	8 November 1886	Charles Nicholson Margaret Ann Wyatt	Charles Nicholson Margaret Ann Wyatt 💍 1886/3183	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	29 18	Levels Station Timaru	20 years 18 years	Dwelling house of Mrs Charlotte Wyatt, George Street, Timaru	86/3191	Charlotte Wyatt, mother	8 November 1886	Rev Thomas W. Newbold, Wesleyan
142	10 November 1886	Patrick Casey Elizabeth Jane Gibson	Patrick Casey Elizabeth Jane Gibson 💍 1886/3218	Bachelor Spinster	Police Constable	29 21	Timaru Timaru	5 years 21 years	Residence of Rev James Daly, Timaru	86/3205		10 November 1886	Rev James Daly, Roman Catholic
143	19 November 1886	George Saunders Mary Ann Cameron Anderson	George Saunders Mary Ann Cameron Anderson 💍 1886/3199	Bachelor Spinster	Chaffcutter	24 22	Pleasant Point Pleasant Point	7 years 14 years	Dwelling house of Mrs Taylor, Arthur Street, Timaru	86/3207		19 November 1886	Rev Dr Gillies, Presbyterian
144	22 November 1886	William George Bassett Olive Gertrude Tyler	William George Bassett Olive Gertrude Tyler 💍 1886/3222	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk	21 18	Timaru Timaru	13 months 2 years	Baptist Church, E Street	86/3210	none resident in Colony	6 December 1886	Rev C.C. Brown, Baptist
145	24 November 1886	William Jones Alice Rose Ford	William Jones Alice Rose Ford 💍 1886/3186	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	23 26	Timaru Timaru	12 years 2 months	St. Mary's English Church	86/3196		24 November 1886	Ven H.W. Harper, Church of England

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).