Intentions to Marry, 1895 January-June

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840407, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Carole at Archives NZ Wellington, June 11 2025.

1895 is bound in two volumes, January-June and July-December.

Page 421

District of Oamaru Quarter ending 31 March 1895

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
1964	1 January 1895	Thomas Borland Mary Padkin	Thomas Borland Mary Padkin 💍 1895/3317	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer Dressmaker	27 20	Oamaru North Road, Oamaru	5 days 20 years	The house of Mr. James Padkin, North Road, Oamaru	95/916	James Padkin, Father	1 January 1895	Rev. A. B. Todd, Presbyterian
1965	4 January 1895	Frederick Helle May Hesketh	Frederick Kelly May Hesketh 💍 1895/3310	Bachelor Spinster	Coal-miner Servant	22 21	Ngapara Ngapara	15 years 12 months	The Office of the Registrar of Marriages, Oamaru	95/909		4 January 1895	The Registrar of Marriages, Oamaru
1966	11 January 1895	Abel Better Lily Sincock	Abel Betten Polly Sincock 💍 1895/3319	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	23 25	Oamaru Oamaru	3 weeks 18 years	The house of Mr. Edwin Pearce, Oamaru	95/918		11 January 1895	Rev. H. B. Martin, Wesleyan
1967	1 February 1895	Edward Daley Mary Jane O'Neill	Edward Feiley Mary Jane ONeill 💍 1895/3915	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer Servant	36 26	Alma Oamaru	15 years 4 years	St. Patrick's Basilica, Oamaru	95/911		1 February 1895	Very Rev. John Mackay, Roman Catholic
1968	1 February 1895	Duncan Emmerson Ellen Louisa Chilton	Duncan Emmerson Ellen Louisa Chilton 💍 1895/3311	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer Servant	57 53	Oamaru Oamaru	3 days 3 days	The Office of the Registrar of Marriages, Oamaru	95/910		1 February 1895	The Registrar of Marriages, Oamaru
1969	11 February 1895	Thomas Cartwright Ellen Mannix	Thomas Cartwright Ellen Mannix 💍 1895/3312	Bachelor Spinster	Railway Porter Servant	35 25	Town Belt, Oamaru Kakanui North	4 years 3 years	The house of Mr. Thomas Sheehy, Kakanui North	95/912		11 February 1895	Very Rev. John Mackay, Roman Catholic
1970	13 February 1895	Alfred Groves Mary Ann Lopedoose	Alfred Groves Mary Ann Cope Loose 💍 1895/3318	Bachelor Spinster	Shepherd Servant	27 23	Papakaio Oamaru	7 years 4 days	The house of Mr. Charles Rivers, Street Lane, Oamaru	95/917		13 February 1895	Rev. A. B. Todd, Presbyterian
1971	25 February 1895	George Brown Honora Piper	George Brown Honora Piper 💍 1895/3313	Bachelor Spinster	Railway Guard	33 24	Oamaru Oamaru	12 months 24 years	St. Patrick's Basilica, Oamaru	95/913		25 February 1895	Very Rev. John Mackay, Roman Catholic
1972	1 March 1895	William Robinson Catherine Eyes	William Nolan Catherine Phelan 💍 1895/548 William Bell Catherine Casey 💍 1895/1669 William Shelford Catherine Baker 💍 1895/1784 William Nathan Catherine Matheson 💍 1895/1863	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Servant	30 20	Oamaru Oamaru	3 weeks 3 weeks	St. Luke's Church, Oamaru	Not issued to person in Oamaru. See attached to give consent.	See attached to give consent	Certificate not yet issued.

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).