Intentions to Marry, 1887

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840399, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Carole at Archives NZ Wellington, May 14 2025

Page 123

District of Wellington Quarter ending 31 March 1887

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	1 January 1887	George Hannah Weld Mary Louisa Colclough	George Hannon Wilson Mary Louise Colclugh 💍 1887/2586	Bachelor Spinster	Insurance Clerk	24 24	Wellington Wellington	4 days 18 months	St. Marks Church	87/270		3 January 1887	Rev. R. Coffey
2	3 January 1887	Samuel Eli Downes Mary Boughbee		Widower Spinster	Engineer	28 22	Wellington Wellington	4 years 4 years	Presbyterian Church	87/268		3 January 1887	Rev. J. K. Elliott
3	3 January 1887	Frederick Neilson Mary Newitt	Frederick Fielding Mary Davies 💍 1887/2120	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	24 27	Wainuiomata Petone	4 years 1 year	Wesleyan Church	87/277		3 January 1887	Rev. D. J. Murray
4	4 January 1887	John Duncan Lizzie Styles	John Duncan Lizzie Styles 💍 1887/2596	Bachelor Spinster	Mariner	33 19	Wellington Wellington	4 years 4 years	Registrars Office Wellington	87/304	No relation in Colony	18 January 1887	W. T. Wyatt
5	5 January 1887	David Martin Margaret Elizabeth Thompson	David Martin Margaret Elizabeth Morris 💍 1887/2656	Bachelor Spinster	Draper	25 26	Wellington Wellington	2 months 1 week	House of Mr. Kirkcaldie, Thompson Street	87/340		5 January 1887	Rev. James Paterson
6	5 January 1887	Matthew Hanrahan Johanna O'Mara	Mathew Hanrahan Johanna OMara 💍 1887/2622	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	33 27	Wellington Wellington	4 years 4 years	St. Mary of the Angels	87/331		5 January 1887	Rev. P. Kerrigan
7	7 January 1887	Michael Kerrigan Catherine Griffin	Michael Herrigan Catherine Griffin 💍 1887/2621	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	25 22	Wellington Wellington	4 years 4 years	St. Mary of the Angels	87/330		7 January 1887	Rev. P. Kerrigan
8	7 January 1887	William Francis Lloyd Emma Eyre		Bachelor Spinster	Traveller	28 28	Wellington Wellington	14 years 10 days	House of Mr. Robey, College Street	87/297		7 January 1887	Rev. L. M. Isitt
9	10 January 1887	Morgan Robert Shea Margaret O'Shea	Morgan Flaherty Margret O'Shea 💍 1887/2608	Bachelor Spinster	Hotel Manager	27 20	Wellington Wellington	3 days 4 years	St. Marys Cathedral	87/292	Daniel O'Shea, Father	10 January 1887	Rev. John McNamara
10	10 January 1887	Albert Hudson Edith Harrison		Bachelor Spinster	Master Mariner	30 24	Wellington Wellington	3 days 4 years	St. Marks Church	87/273		10 January 1887	Rev. R. Coffey
11	10 January 1887	William Grey Sarah Stoggon	William Coleman Sarah Stokes 💍 1887/3259	Widower Spinster	Secretary Post Office and Telegraphs	41 27	Wellington Wellington	4 years 4 years	St. Andrews Church	87/345		10 January 1887	Rev. C. S. Ogg
12	10 January 1887	William Andrew Eliza Podmore	William Hudson Eliza Pudmore 💍 1887/2580 William Young Eliza Woodburn 💍 1887/121	Bachelor Spinster	Shoemaker	19 23	Wellington Wellington	4 years 4 years	House of Mr. N. Podmore, Tory Street	87/287	No relation in Colony	25 January 1887	Rev. J. J. Pendray

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).