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 729

District of Tokomairiro 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	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
614	29 April 1890	John Turner Elizabeth Ann Fletcher	John Turner Elizabeth Ann Fletcher 💍 1890/2026 John Nicoll Elizabeth Fletcher 💍 1890/3176	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	58 28	Milton Milton	3 days 3 days	Church of England	90/1809	29 April 1890	Revd R. O. Hampton
615	13 May 1890	John Bruce McIntosh Elizabeth Hamilton	John Bruce McIntosh Elizabeth Hamilton 💍 1890/1366 John MacMaster Elizabeth Hamilton 💍 1890/3719	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	23 22	Milton Milton	3 days in the residence Life	Residence of William Hamilton Milton	90/1804	13 May 1890	Revd Jas Chisholm
616	19 May 1890	Alfred Henry Moorhouse Janet Allison Crossgrove	Alfred Henry Moorhouse Janet Allison Crossgrove 💍 1890/1369	Bachelor Spinster	Tinsmith	25 19	Tokomairiro Tokomairiro	3 years in the residence Life	Residence of Henry Crossgrove Milton	90/1807	19 May 1890	Revd Jos Blight
617	29 May 1890	Alexander Leonard Isabella Garson	Alexander Leonard Isabella Garson 💍 1890/1367	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	26 23	Taieri Ferry Taieri Ferry	4 years at the residence 2 years	At the residence of Alexander Leonard Taieri Ferry	90/1805	29 May 1890	Revd F. G. Geo Hall
618	7 June 1890	John Higgins Janet Beattie	John Higgins Janet Brattie 💍 1890/1368 John Higgins Sarah Burnes Andrews 💍 1890/3559	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	31 24	Waihola Waihola	7 years in the residence 4 days	Residence of John Higgins Waihola	90/1806	7 June 1890	Revd George Hall
619	18 June 1890	Joseph Henry Shutt Elizabeth Ashmore	Joseph Henry Shutt Elizabeth Ashmore 💍 1890/2015	Bachelor Spinster	Hawker	28 20	Milton Milton	8 years at the residence Life	At the residence of William Ashmore Milton	90/1808	18 June 1890	Revd Jos Blight

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).