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 661

District of Ashburton Quarter ending 30 June 1889

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
598	13 May 1889	James Schargery Grace Bannett	James Glassey Grace Bennett 💍 1889/1751	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Domestic Servant	36 24	Seafield Wakanui	3 1/2 years 15 years	Presbyterian Church Wakanui.	89/1550		13 May 1889	Revd. A. M. Beattie
599	16 May 1889	William Uncheeding Marian Hill		Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Domestic Servant	23 23	Ashburton Ashburton	4 years 4 years		89/1540		16 May 1889	Revd. E. W. Scott
600	18 May 1889	John Woods Ellen Martha Griffiths	John Woods Ellen Martha Griffiths 💍 1889/1769	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Domestic Servant	28 19	Wheatstone Wheatstone	12 years 10 years	Church of England Tinwald	89/1544	Mark Griffiths, Father	18 May 1889	Revd. R. J. Garbett
601	21 May 1889	Hugh Gunn Mary Elizabeth McHarry	Hugh Gunn Mary Elizabeth Meharry 💍 1889/1754	Bachelor Spinster	Shepherd Dressmaker	27 23	Winslow Tinwald	10 years 8 years	Private Dwelling house of William McHarry at Tinwald	89/1553		31 May 1889	Revd. A. Blake
603	7 June 1889	Richard Frederick Allan Emily Argyle	Richard Frederick Allan Emily Argyle 💍 1889/1748	Bachelor Spinster	Contractor Domestic Servant	22 21	Ashburton Greenstreet	14 years 10 years	Primitive Methodist Church at Ashburton.	89/1547		7 June 1889	Revd. J. Boothroyd.
604	10 June 1889	James Randell Corrigan Annie Group	James Randell Corrigan Annie Troup 💍 1889/1746	Bachelor Spinster	Butcher	23 24	Tinwald Ashburton	12 years 18 months	St. Andrews Church Tinwald.	89/1545		10 June 1889	Revd. R. J. Garbett
605	12 June 1889	John Groves Jane Foreman	John Groves Jane Foreman 💍 1889/1766	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	31 19	Ashburton Ashburton	15 years 10 years	St. Stephens Church Ashburton	89/1541	James Foreman, Father	19 June 1889	Revd. E. W. Scott.
606	18 June 1889	John Pomeroy Blue Annie Williams	John Pomeroy Blee Annie Williams 💍 1889/2374	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer Domestic Servant	30 18	Ashton Ashton	5 years 13 years	St. Philip & St. James Church Waterton.	89/2388	Edmund Williams, Father	18 June 1889	Revd. R. J. Garbett.
607	20 June 1889	Joseph Lloyd Eliza Patter	Joseph Lloyd Eliza Potter 💍 1889/1768	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	21 21	Winslow Ashburton	1 month 11 years	Wesleyan Church Ashburton.	89/1543		20 June 1889	Revd. J. W. Buttle.

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).