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 895

District of Inglewood Quarter ending 30 September 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
122	18 July 1890	Thomas Ambrose Taylor Emily Turchi	Thomas Ambrose Taylor Emily Turchi 💍 1890/2283	Bachelor Spinster	Settler Domestic Servant	32 years 19	Moa District Moa District	12 years 3 years	The residence of Mr J. Brown Durham Road	90/2138	Carlo Turchi father of Emily Turchi	18 July 1890	Rev. J. Nixon
123	23 July 1890	Charles Smith Annie Relcena Maria Storring	Charles Smith Anna Nelcena Maria Storring 💍 1890/2272	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	20 years 22 years	Moa District Moa District	1 year 1 year	The Residence of Mr J. Storring Wortley Road near Inglewood	90/2146	Thomas Smith father of Charles Smith	23 July 1890	Rev. James T. Pinfold
124	8 September 1890	Henry Heal Mary Chusick Matthews	Henry Heal Mary Chusich Matthews 💍 1890/2271	Bachelor Spinster	Butcher	22 years 15 years	Moa District Moa District	4 years 15 years	The Residence of Mr J. Swan Egmont Road Moa District	90/2145	Catherine Hobday Swan mother of Mary Chusick Matthews	8 September 1890	Rev. H. H. Brown
125	13 September 1890	Henry William March Jane Fanny Waldron	Henry William Marsh Jane Fanny Waldron 💍 1890/2270	Bachelor Divorced	Storekeeper Storekeeper	44 years 42 years	Inglewood Inglewood	10 years 2 years	The Registry office Inglewood	90/2144		13 September 1890	Robert Stevens Registrar
126	24 September 1890	John William Mackinder Susannah Parkin	John William Mackinder Susannah Parkin 💍 1890/2273	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	22 years 17 years	Moa District Moa District	1 year 6 months	The Residence of Mr C. Parkin Wortley Road	90/2147	Ellen Parkin mother of Susannah Parkin	24 September 1890	Rev. James T. Pinfold

These records have been automatically transcribed and must be verified using the page image (below)

100% Contrast

100% Brightness

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).