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 678

District of Gisborne Quarter ending 30 September 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	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
650	17 July 1891	Alfred Ford Ellen Christian Hamster	Alfred Ford Matthews Ellen Christian 💍 1891/1212	Bachelor Spinster	Surveyor	41 years 22 years	Gisborne Gisborne	10 years 22 years	The residence of J. Matthews at Gisborne	91/2097	17 July 1891	Robert W. Ryburn (Presbyterian)
651	20 July 1891	Alfred Hatton Mena Basic	Alfred Hatton Mena Bain 💍 1891/1215	Bachelor Spinster	Setter	38 years 27 years	Ormond Gisborne	13 years 27 years	Holy Trinity Church, Gisborne	91/2100	20 July 1891	Allan Frances (Church of England)
652	24 July 1891	Alfred Edward Hepburn Isabella Dixon Makarakia	Alfred Edward Hepburn Isabella Dixon 💍 1891/1213	Bachelor Spinster	Carter	21 years 21 years	Gisborne Gisborne	16 years 21 years	The residence of Mr. William Dixon Makarakia	91/2098	24 July 1891	Robert W. Ryburn (Presbyterian)
653	29 July 1891	Francis Keeney Mary Theresa Finnigan	Francis Heeney Mary Teresa Finnegan 💍 1891/1214	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Domestic Servant	26 years 29 years	Whataupoko Gisborne	3 years 29 years	The Roman Catholic Church, Gisborne	91/2099	29 July 1891	Joseph Paul Hoare (Roman Catholic)
654	4 August 1891	Modanga Tautauke Rama Hingi		Bachelor Spinster	Sheep farmer	40 years 21 years	Parehimanihi Parehimanihi	40 years 21 years	The Office of the Registrar of Marriages, Gisborne	91/2101	4 August 1891	The Registrar of Marriages, Gisborne

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 1898. More registers will be added when the Archives NZ Wellington reading room re-opens in September 2025.

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).