Intentions to Marry, 1890

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840402, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Luke at Archives NZ Wellington, May 23 2025

Page 574

District of Wairau Quarter ending 30 June 1890

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
8	9 April 1890	Arthur Avery Bessie Berryman	Arthur Avery Bessie Berryman 💍 1890/959	Bachelor Spinster	Hotel keeper	24 27	Awatere Grove Road, Blenheim	about 12 years about 16 years	The House of Mr John Berryman, Grove Road, Blenheim	90/1385		9 April 1890	Rev. I. S. Grace
9	9 April 1890	John Main Annie Berryman	John Main Annie Berryman 💍 1890/925	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	23 22	Blenheim Blenheim	about 3 years about 16 years	The House of Mr John Berryman, Grove Road, Blenheim	90/1379		9 April 1890	Rev. I. S. Grace
10	21 April 1890	Jonathan David Iremonger the younger Sarah Kennedy	Jonathan David Iremonger Sarah Kennedy 💍 1890/970	Bachelor Spinster	Painter Domestic Servant	21 20	Main Street, Blenheim Grove Town	about 5 years about 20 years	The House of Mr Jonathan David Iremonger, Main Street, Blenheim	90/1386	John Kennedy, father	21 April 1890	Rev. W. O. Robb
11	25 April 1890	Sidney Norgrove Nellie Mills	Sidney Norgrove Nellie Mills 💍 1890/2078	Bachelor Spinster	Storeman	30 24	Blenheim Spring Creek	29 years 7 days	The House of Mr Albert Adams, Spring Creek	90/1887		25 April 1890	Rev. H. E. Ensor
12	28 April 1890	George Maxwell McKay Emma Horton	George Maxwell McKay Emma Horton 💍 1890/973	Bachelor Spinster	Storeman	24 20	Blenheim Stevenson Street, Blenheim	about 12 years 20 years	The House of Mr William Horton, Stevenson Street, Blenheim	90/1389	William Horton, father	28 April 1890	Rev. Henry Bull
13	28 April 1890	Peter John McMahon Margaret O'Sullivan	Peter John McMahon Margaret O'Sullivan 💍 1890/971	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	21 21	Usual Kenepuru, present Tua Marina Tua Marina	3 days 21 years	The Roman Catholic Church, Tua Marina	90/1387		28 April 1890	Rev. Paul Aubry
14	12 May 1890	James Sheary Mary O'Dwyer	James Sheary Mary O'Dwyer 💍 1890/972	Bachelor Spinster	Mounted Constable	31 21	Blenheim Spring Creek	about 7 years about 21 years	The Roman Catholic Church, Blenheim	90/1388		12 May 1890	Rev. W. J. Lewis
15	24 May 1890	Thomas James Storey Rosetta Lilias Chittenden	Thomas James Storey Rosetta Lilias Chittenden 💍 1890/926	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	24 21	Wairau Valley Blenheim	24 years 14 years	The Church of the Nativity, Blenheim	90/1380		24 May 1890	Rev. I. S. Grace

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).