Intentions to Marry, 1888

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840400, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Alexandra at Archives NZ Wellington, May 14 2025

Page 557

District of Waipawa Quarter ending 30 June 1888

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
370	24 March 1888	William Charles Walker Georgina Gray	William Charles Walker Georgina Gray 💍 1888/1299	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	19 17	Hampden Hampden	1 year Residence S. 15 years Vestry, Hampden	[illegible]	88/283	Jno. Gray, father	3 April 1888	Rev. J. C. Eccles, Waipawa
371	1 May 1888	Donald Roderick McLeod Mary Jane Rogers	Donald Roderick McLeod Mary Jane Rogers 💍 1888/1301	Bachelor Spinster	Shepherd Parlor Maid	29 23	Waipawa Waipawa	3 days 5 days	St Peters Church	88/285		10 May 1888	Rev. J. C. Eccles, Waipawa
372	2 May 1888	James Emmanuel Cole Price Mary Jane Nicholson	James Emmanuel Cole Rice Mary Jane Nicholson 💍 1888/1300	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	34 24	Waipawa Waipawa	5 days Residence of John Price 24 years Nicholson Waipawa	[illegible]	88/284		2 May 1888	Rev. J. C. Eccles, Waipawa
373	9 May 1888	John O'Sullivan Julia Ahern	John O'Sullivan Julia Ahern 💍 1888/1298	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Housekeeper	28 25	Ormondville Waipawa	4 years 5 years Ormondville	St Bridgets Church Ormondville	88/282		9 May 1888	Rev. J. L. Ahern, Waipawa
374	11 May 1888	Alfred James Ellingham Emily Britten	Alfred James Ellingham Emily Britten 💍 1888/1302	Bachelor Spinster	Carter	24 19	Kaikoura Waipawa	24 years 19 years	St Peters Church	88/286	John Britten, Father	11 May 1888	Rev. J. C. Eccles, Waipawa
375	21 May 1888	William James Adams Ellen Alder	William James Adams Ellen Alder 💍 1888/1304	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	21 15	Blackburn Blackburn	13 years Residence of H. Adams 15 years Adams, Te Aute	[illegible]	88/288	Clara Alder, Mother	21 May 1888	Rev. J. C. Eccles, Waipawa
376	23 May 1888	John Anderson Clara Alder	John Anderson Clara Alder 💍 1888/1303	Widower Widow	Station Manager Farmer	57 48	Hampden Blackburn	15 years Residence of H. Adams 13 years Adams, Te Aute	[illegible]	88/287		23 May 1888	Rev. J. C. Eccles, Waipawa
377	11 June 1888	John Kearney Mary Brosnaham	John Kearney Mary Brosnahan 💍 1888/1306	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Domestic	26 18	Waipawa Waipawa	3 days 3 days	St Patricks Church	88/289	No one in the Colony having authority to give consent	11 June 1888	Rev. T. G. Samson, Waipawa

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).