Intentions to Marry, 1891

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840403, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Carole and Luke at Archives NZ Wellington, May 28 2025

A few pages are missing due to focus issues.

The Archives NZ CSV index has recorded pages 765, 767 and 769 incorrectly as 795, 797 and 796.

Page 212

District of Napier Quarter ending 31 December 1891

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
97	18 November 1891	Ernest Valentine Cox Ellen Sheppard	Ernest Valentine Cox Ellen Sheppard 💍 1891/1919	Bachelor Spinster	Painter	22 19	Napier Napier	19 years 15 years	Church of England, Napier	91/3819	Charles Quane, step father of Ellen Sheppard	18 November 1891	Rev. Dean Howell, Church of England
98	21 November 1891	Thomas Wilson Justhine Flora Lamerssen	Thomas Wilson Jacobina Flora Lauersen 💍 1891/2319	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Domestic	30 20	Napier Napier	17 years	Presbyterian Church, Napier	91/3248	Jacob Lamerssen, father of Justhine Flora Lamerssen	21 November 1891	Rev. J. G. Paterson, Presbyterian
99	30 November 1891	Thomas Benjamin Revell Maria Curran	Thomas Benjamin Revell Maria Curran 💍 1891/2346	Bachelor Spinster	Seaman Dressmaker	22 17	Port Ahuriri Port Ahuriri	14 months 9 years	Church of England at Port Ahuriri	91/3250	Ellen Curran, mother of Maria Curran	30 November 1891	Rev. O. Dean, Church of England
100	9 December 1891	Albert Edward Waller Elizabeth Revell		Bachelor Spinster	General Dealer	28 20	Napier Napier	4 years 18 years	Residence of R. Palon, Miller, Napier	91/3251	Hannah Louisa 9 Dec Father & Mother of Elizabeth Louisa Chambers	9 December 1891	Rev. E. Best, Wesleyan
101	14 December 1891	George Robert Goldfinch Emma Eliza Brown	Robert George Goddard Emma Eliza Brown 💍 1891/2345	Bachelor Spinster	Lineman	26 23	Napier Taradale	17 years 21 years	All Saints Church, Taradale	91/3255		14 December 1891	Rev. C. L. Tuke, Church of England
102	16 December 1891	Ernest Kashlan Margaret Toy	Ernest Anderton Margaret Healy 💍 1892/766	Bachelor Spinster	Banker	29 30	Wellington Napier	7 months 6 years	The Cathedral, Napier	91/3752		16 December 1891	Dean Howell, Church of England
103	28 December 1891	William Andrew Margaret Hall	William Henderson Mary Elizabeth Hall 💍 1891/1635	Bachelor Spinster	Tailor	33 23	Napier Napier	13 years 23 years	In the office of the Registrar of Marriages, Napier	91/3261		28 December 1891	J. G. Paterson, Registrar

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).