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 1387

District of Oamaru Quarter ending 31 December 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
1356	1st October 1887	William Hebba Mary Ann McTadgen	William McClea Mary Ann McFadgen 💍 1887/1495 William Heath Mary Ann Harris 💍 1887/3619 William Hunter Mary Ann Pearson 💍 1887/120 William McCann Mary Ann McCallum 💍 1887/1461 William Mayo Mary Ann Stevens 💍 1887/1945	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	26 22	Weston Whitstone	1 year 3 years	The house of Mr Joseph Williams, Whitstone	87/3198	11 October 1887	Revd James A. Sill, Presbyterian
1357	4th October 1887	Ernest William Blyth Alice Page	Ernest William Blyth Alice Page 💍 1887/1481	Bachelor Widow	Labourer Shopkeeper	30 28	Oamaru Oamaru	4 days 12 months	St Paul's Church, Oamaru	87/3183	12 October 1887	Revd B. Todd, Presbyterian
1358	4th October 1887	John Moir Agnes Boyd	John Moir Agnes Boyd 💍 1887/1482	Bachelor Spinster	Store Assistant Servant	38 27	Oamaru Oamaru	7 years 3 years	St Paul's Church, Oamaru	87/3184	21 October 1887	Revd B. Todd, Presbyterian
1359	22nd October 1887	Sidney Herbert Knight Margaret Agnes Watson	Sidney Herbert Knight Margaret Agnes Watson 💍 1887/1484	Bachelor Spinster	Fellmonger	25 24	Kakani Kakani	7 years 14 years	The house of Mr Wharton, Kakani North	87/3186	22 October 1887	Revd G. W. J. Spence, Wesleyan
1360	31st October 1887	Michael Ford Mary Ann West	Michael Wood Mary Ann West 💍 1887/1485	Bachelor Spinster	Ploughman Servant	40 29	Awamoa Oamaru	4 years 4 months	The house of Mr Alexander McCallum, Reed Street, Oamaru	87/3187	31 October 1887	Revd G. W. J. Spence, Wesleyan
1361	4th November 1887	John Fallon Mary Flaherty	John Fallon Mary Flaherty 💍 1887/1505	Bachelor Spinster	Farm Labourer Servant	25 22	Weston Oamaru	8 years 3 days	St Patrick's Church, Oamaru	87/3190	4 November 1887	Very Revd William Coleman, Roman Catholic
1362	2nd November 1887	John Gordon Selina McMillan	John Condon Dolina McMillan 💍 1887/1476	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Servant	23 21	South Oamaru Oamaru	13 years 2 years	The Office of the Registrar of Marriages, Oamaru	87/3179	2 November 1887	The Registrar of Marriages, Oamaru
1363	3rd November 1887	William Melville Maria Wilhelmina Hille	William Melville Maria Wilhelmina Hille 💍 1887/1475	Bachelor Spinster	Shepherd	30 23	Oamaru Oamaru	4 days 3 days	The Office of the Registrar of Marriages, Oamaru	87/3178	3 November 1887	The Registrar of Marriages, Oamaru

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).