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 649

District of Oamaru Quarter ending 30 June 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	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
1335	02 May 1887	Robert Duncan Ellen Mitchell	Robert Duncan Ellen Mitchell 💍 1887/3567	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer Domestic Servant	53 35	Inchclutha Inchclutha	6 years 3 years	The office of the Registrar of Marriages	87/1523	25 May 1887	The Deputy Registrar for Oamaru District
1336	30 May 1887	William Hugh McRandle Catherine Rowan	William Hugh McRandle Catherine Rowan 💍 1887/1804	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Domestic Servant	27 24	Oamaru Oamaru	8 years 4 years	St Patrick's Church	87/1519	30 May 1887	The Very Revd. William Coleman, Roman Catholic
1337	06 June 1887	Patrick McCarthy Minnie Morrison	Patrick McCarthy Minnie Morrissey 💍 1887/1805	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	28 24	Oamaru Oamaru	8 years 12 years	St Patrick's Church	87/1520	06 June 1887	The Very Revd. William Coleman, Roman Catholic
1338	06 June 1887	Matthew Shortell Jane Macauley		Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	33 23	Oamaru Awamoko	12 years 23 years	St Patrick's Church	87/1521	06 June 1887	The Very Revd. William Coleman, Roman Catholic
1339	08 June 1887	James William Reynolds Jessie Carruth	James William Reynolds Jessie Carruth 💍 1887/3386	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Domestic Servant	30 26	Oamaru Oamaru	5 days 21 days	The residence of Charlotte Carruth, Thames Street, Oamaru	87/1514	16 June 1887	Revd. Alex B. Todd, Presbyterian
1340	18 June 1887	Patrick Fitzpatrick Bridget Walsh	Patrick Fitzpatrick Bridget Walsh 💍 1887/1807	Bachelor Spinster	Farm Labourer Servant	29 24	Oamaru Oamaru	3 weeks 4 years	St Patrick's Church	87/1522	18 June 1887	The Very Revd. William Coleman, Roman Catholic
1341	23 June 1887	Henry Herman Dryer Catherine Theresa Laurenic	Henry Herman Myer Catherine Theresa McKee 💍 1887/3582	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Servant	28 21	Oamaru Oamaru	3 years 7 days	The residence of George W. J. Spence, Eden Street, Oamaru	87/1514	23 June 1887	Revd. George W. J. Spence, Wesleyan
1342	27 June 1887	Charles Clark Agnes Deans	Charles Clark Agnes Deans 💍 1887/3568	Bachelor Spinster	Carter	29 21	Maheno Oamaru	3 months 3 days	The office of the Registrar of Marriages, Oamaru District	87/1524	27 June 1887	The Deputy Registrar for Oamaru District

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).