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 1365

District of Greymouth Quarter ending 31 December 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
46	27 November 1889	William Bell Mary Weekes	William McLeod Mary Telfer 💍 1889/2150 William Boyd Mary Glennan 💍 1890/116 William Boyd Mary O'Malley 💍 1889/2956	Bachelor Spinster	Draughtsman None	27 years 22 years	Greymouth Greymouth	3 years 2 years	Church of England	89/3115		27 November 1889	The Rev: J. B. Maclean, Church of England
47	29 November 1889	Alexander Mouand Cloverston Alice Dissinglan		Bachelor Spinster	Cook None	34 years 24 years	On board S.S. Rosaman trading between Greymouth and Wellington Greymouth	3 months 3 years	At the residence of William Ruby situate at Cobden	89/3108		29 November 1889	The Rev: B. J. Westbrook, Presbyterian
48	4 December 1889	Thomas Abraham Clarke Ann Margaret Rankin	Thomas Abraham Clarke Annie Margaret Rankin 💍 1889/3055	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer None	27 years 26 years	Greymouth Greymouth	5 years 7 days	Church of England	89/3116		4 December 1889	The Rev: J. B. Maclean, Church of England
49	9 December 1889	Nicholas Hell Jane Trunk	Nicholas Hill Jane Junk 💍 1889/3047	Bachelor Spinster	Miner None	23 years 27 years	Wallsend Wallsend	2 years 2 years	At the residence of Brownlow James Westbrook in Jamieson Street, Greymouth	89/3109		9 December 1889	The Rev: R. S. Westbrook, Presbyterian
50	16 December 1889	Harrison Malcolm Mary Johnston	John Harrison Malcolm Maud Mary Johnston 💍 1889/3048	Bachelor Spinster	School Teacher None	24 years 19 years	Greymouth Greymouth	2 years 19 years	At the Residence of Robert James Johnston situate in Jamieson Street, Greymouth	89/3110	Robert James Johnston, father	16 December 1889	The Rev: R. J. Westbrook, Presbyterian
51	17 December 1889	Robert Townson Agnes Solemnang Pander	Robert Lumsden Agnes Solomon Pender 💍 1889/3114	Bachelor Spinster	Miner None	32 years 22 years	Brunnerton Brunnerton	3 years 9 months	At the Office of Registrar of Marriages, Greymouth	89/3121		17 December 1889	The Registrar of Marriages, Greymouth

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).