Intentions to Marry, 1889

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840401, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Carole at Archives NZ Wellington, May 23 2025

Page 1055

District of Oamaru Quarter ending 30 September 1889 Registrar W. G. Filleul

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
1161	1 July 1889	Patrick Malone Ellen O'Brien	Patrick Malone Ellen OBrien 💍 1889/2424 James Delaney Ellen OBrien 💍 1889/3029	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer Servant	49 39	Totara Oamaru	4 years 14 days	St Patrick's Church, Oamaru	89/2439		14 July 1889	Revd. Edward Donnelly, Roman Catholic
1162	1 July 1889	Archibald Graham Catherine McGregor	Archibald Graham McDermid Catherine McGregor 💍 1889/2433	Bachelor Spinster	Shepherd	30 21	Oamaru Oamaru	3 days 4 days	St Paul's Church, Manse, Oamaru	89/2447		10 July 1889	Revd. Alexr. B. Todd, Presbyterian
1163	5 July 1889	Patrick Dinan Bridget O'Connor	Patrick Dinan Bridget OConnor 💍 1889/2425 Patrick O'Neil Bridget O'Connor 💍 1890/52	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Servant	37 28	Oamaru Oamaru	14 years 10 years	The house of the Revd. Edward Donnelly, Oamaru	89/2440		15 July 1889	Revd. Edward Donnelly, Roman Catholic
1164	31 July 1889	George Davidson Catherine Waddell	George Davidson Catherine Waddell 💍 1889/2434	Bachelor Spinster	Teacher	30 25	Oamaru Oamaru	4 days 1 month	The house of Revd. Little, Eden Street, Oamaru	89/2445		31 July 1889	Revd. Alexr. B. Todd, Presbyterian
1165	31 July 1889	Lincoln Henry Templeton Catherine McLean Munro	Lincoln Henry Tempero Catherine McVeun Munro 💍 1889/2435	Bachelor Spinster	Draper	25 23	Oamaru Oamaru	18 years 16 years	The house of Mr. James Munro, Gloucester Street, Oamaru	89/2449		31 July 1889	Revd. Alexr. B. Todd, Presbyterian
1166	3 August 1889	David Falls Rebecca Cassells	David Falls Rebecca Cassells 💍 1889/2436	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer Servant	22 19	South Oamaru South Oamaru	13 years 9 years	St Paul's Church, Manse, Oamaru	89/2450	Alexander Cassells, Father	3 August 1889	Revd. Alexr. B. Todd, Presbyterian
1167	13 August 1889	John Templeton Jardine Margaret Lawson Dempster	John Templeton Jardine Margaret Lawson Dempster 💍 1889/2432	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer Weaver	22 24	Oamaru Oamaru	21 years 5 years	The Office of the Registrar of Marriages, Oamaru	89/2446		13 August 1889	The Registrar of Marriages, Oamaru
1168	19 August 1889	Thomas O'Donnell Beatrice McLaughlin	Thomas ODonnell Beatrice McLaughlin 💍 1889/2427	Bachelor Spinster	Publican Servant	42 21	Enfield Awamoa	18 months 3 months	St Patrick's Church, Oamaru	89/2442		19 August 1889	Revd. Edward Donnelly, Roman Catholic

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 1899. More registers are being added almost every week.

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).