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 1389

District of Buller Quarter ending 31 December 1890 Registrar Robert Lair

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
527	1 October 1890	Denis Edward O'Neill Alice Symonds	Denis Edward O'Neill Alice Symonds 💍 1890/3134	Bachelor Spinster	Painter	23 21	Westport Westport	2 years 18 years	Roman Catholic Church	90/3333		1 October 1890	Thomas Walshe
528	9 October 1890	Peter Allan Mary Ann Baker	Peter Allan Mary Ann Baker 💍 1890/3529	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	27 22	Westport Westport	18 months 2 years	Registrars Office	90/3337		9 October 1890	The Registrar
529	20 October 1890	John Harrison Ballantine Margaret Mulligan	John Harrison Ballantine Margaret Mulligan 💍 1890/3135	Bachelor Spinster	Engineer	27 20	Westport Westport	3 Days 18 months	Roman Catholic Church	90/3334	none	20 October 1890	Thomas Walshe
530	31 October 1890	Magnus Jeans Jane Edith Rebecca Jones	Magnus Flaus Jane Edith Rebecca Jones 💍 1890/3154	Bachelor Spinster		33 20	Westport Westport	3 years 20 years	Residence of Mr J. Jones	90/3336	Elizabeth Jones	31 October 1890	James Wrigley
531	6 December 1890	George Burden Janet Howat	George Burdon Janet Howat 💍 1890/3157	Bachelor Spinster	Coal Miner Domestic Servant	27 21	Denniston Westport	2 years 1 1/2 years	Registrars Office	90/3338		6 December 1890	The Registrar
532	10 December 1890	John Gillies Catherine Scott Gillies	John Lillie Gillies Catherine Scott Munro 💍 1890/3133	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk	24 23	Denniston Denniston	5 Days 18 years	Residence of The John	90/3332		10 December 1890	Robert C. Morrison
533	11 December 1890	Charles William Sims Ann Read Atkinson	Charles William Lewis Ann Read Atkinson 💍 1890/3477	Bachelor Spinster	Contractor	27 18	Denniston Orawaiti, Cape Foulwind	2 years 1 1/2 years	Church of England	90/3775	George Ann Atkinson	11 December 1890	James E. Cullen
534	27 December 1890	John Delany Lucy O'Brien	John Delaney Lucy O'Brien 💍 1891/3589	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer General Servant	32 19	Orawaiti, Cape Foulwind Orawaiti, Cape Foulwind	3 years 7 Weeks	Roman Catholic Church	91/512	Daniel O'Brien	27 December 1890	Thomas Walshe
535	30 December 1890	Walter Essex Evans Margaret Josephine Dunne	Walter Essex Cross Margaret Josephine Dunne 💍 1890/3143	Widower Spinster	Miner School Teacher	38 29	Westport Westport	6 days 6 days	Roman Catholic Church	90/3335		30 December 1890	J. J. Morrissey

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 1899. More registers are being added almost every week.

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).