Intentions to Marry, 1899 January-June

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840415, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Luke at Archives NZ Wellington (now located in the National Library reading room), September 5 2025

1899 is bound in two volumes, January-June and July-December.

Page 984

District of Oamaru Quarter ending 30 June 1899 Registrar Amri-Ward

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
2009	9 May 1899	John Henry Hay Emma Preston	John Henry Hay Emma Preston 💍 1899/2751	Bachelor Spinster	Clothier	26 29	Oamaru Oamaru	26 years 10 days	At the house of Mr. Robert Hay, situate at Eden Street, Oamaru	99/2710		9 May 1899	Rev. Josiah Ward (Wesleyan Church)
2010	16 May 1899	Mortimer O'Brien Annie Tempero	Mortimer O'Brien Annie Tempero 💍 1899/2795	Bachelor Spinster	Groom	27 25	Oamaru Oamaru	19 years 25 years	At the Roman Catholic Church, Reed Street, Oamaru	99/2732		16 May 1899	Rev. Michael Howard (Roman Catholic Church)
2011	16 May 1899	Joseph Willett Florence Emma Clath	Joseph Willett Florence Emma Clark 💍 1899/127	Bachelor Spinster	Farm Labourer	28 26	Pukeuri Oamaru	5 months 16 years	At the house of Mr. Lewis Clarke, situate at Trent Street, Oamaru	99/2712		16 May 1899	Rev. Josiah Ward (Wesleyan Church)
2012	16 May 1899	Samuel Tocklington Mary McIllwraith	Samuel Pocklington Mary McIlraith 💍 1899/2752	Widower Widow	Boot Manufacturer Housekeeper	53 43	Oamaru Oamaru	21 years 23 years	At the Wesleyan Parsonage at Eden Street, Oamaru	99/2711		16 May 1899	Rev. Josiah Ward (Wesleyan Church)
2013	22 May 1899	William Kirkwood Goodson Elizabeth Walker Allan	William Kirkwood Goodson Elizabeth Walker Allan 💍 1899/2750	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	32 28	Reidston Oamaru	6 months 28 years	At the house of Mr. Robert Allan, situate at Ferneide, Oamaru	99/2709		22 May 1899	Rev. R. J. Pork (Presbyterian Church of Otago & Southland)
2014	23 May 1899	Jeremiah O'Brien Florence Orr	Jeremiah O'Brien Florence Orr 💍 1899/2773	Bachelor Spinster	Dealer	26 20	Oamaru Duntroon	15 years 8 months	At the house of Richard Orr, situate at Duntroon	99/2733	Richard Orr, Father	23 May 1899	Rev. Michael Howard (Roman Catholic Church)

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).