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 1386

District of Rangiora 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
597	3 December 1889	Walter Hill Price Annie Eliza Wright	Walter Robert Rice Annie Eliza Wright 💍 1889/3118	Bachelor Spinster	Butcher not any	32 years 20 years	Ashley Ashley	5 years 20 years	Church of England, Ashley	89/3133	Frederick Wright, father	3 December 1889	Rev. Chas. H. Gosset
598	7 December 1889	David Graham Sarah Robina Legat	David Graham Sarah Ross 💍 1889/3123	Widower Widow	Farmer not any	30 years 55 years	Rangiora Southbrook, Rangiora	5 years 10 years	Dwelling House of Mrs. Legat	89/3138		7 December 1889	The Revd J. H. Gray, Wesleyan Minister
599	14 December 1889	Jason Carmichael Hannah Kennedy Martin	James Carmichael Hannah Kennedy Martin 💍 1889/3120	Bachelor Spinster	Engineer not any	34 years 30 years	Rangiora Hillside, Loburn	2 years 4 years	Dwelling House of Mr. Martin	89/3135		14 December 1889	The Revd Robert Soul, Presbyterian Church
600	19 December 1889	William Fletcher Alice Elizabeth Brown	William Kelcher Alice Elizabeth Barnes 💍 1889/3067	Widower Spinster	Farmer not any	57 years 34 years	Flaxlon Kaiapoi	14 years 8 days	Church of England, Parkville, Kaiapoi	89/3156		19 December 1889	The Revd Phillips
601	23 December 1889	Thomas Shepherd Letitia Middleton	Thomas Shepherd Letitia Middleton 💍 1889/3082	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer not any	23 years 20 years	Rangiora Rangiora	9 years 20 years	Office of Registrar	89/3148	Ann Middleton, mother	23 December 1889	A. H. Cunningham, Registrar
602	28 December 1889	Thomas Restallick Southern Wood		Bachelor Spinster	Shepherd not any	24 years 23 years	Rangiora Rangiora	4 days 15 years	Office of Registrar	89/3149		28 December 1889	A. H. Cunningham, Registrar
603	30 December 1889	Frederick Stevenson Jennie Sarah Knowles		Bachelor Spinster	Teacher not any	24 years 24 years	Rangiora Flaxlon	3 days 24 years	Dwelling House of Mr. Stevenson	89/3132		30 December 1889	The Revd Robert McGregor, Presbyterian Church
604	31 December 1889	Thomas Harley Mary Reardon	Thomas Hawley Mary Benchan 💍 1890/352 Thomas Hall Mary Denton 💍 1889/2012 Thomas Carson Mary Avison 💍 1889/2180 Thomas Tate Mary Mann 💍 1889/3280 Thomas Going Mary Garvin 💍 1889/2343	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer not any	30 years 29 years	Fernside Fernside	4 years 4 years	Roman Catholic Ch.	89/439		31 December 1889	Revd Danl. O'Connor, Rangiora

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).