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 765

District of Invercargill Quarter ending 30 June 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
48	26 May 1891	William Adamson Susan McEwen	William Adamson Susan McEwen 💍 1891/1054	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	29 23	Chatsworth, Invercargill Avenal	2 years	Chatsworth House of McEwen	91/885		26 May 1891	Rev Joseph Sharp
49	1 June 1891	James Paton Carrie Perrine	James Paton Caroline Perrin 💍 1891/1034	Bachelor Spinster	Porter	26 26	Invercargill Invercargill	4 days 26 years	House of Thos S. Perrine Leech	91/889		1 June 1891	Rev John Ferguson
50	2 June 1891	James Simpson Mary Ann McEwen	James Simpson Mary Ann McEwan 💍 1891/1035	Bachelor Spinster	Shepherd	28 24	Invercargill Avenal	4 days 24 years	House of Thos Gestrin Layard	91/890		2 June 1891	Rev John Ferguson
51	10 June 1891	John Cahill Mary Hynes	John Cahill Mary Hynes 💍 1891/1052	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	32 31	Invercargill Invercargill	11 years 11 years	Roman Catholic Church	91/882		10 June 1891	Rev Fr Walsh
52	18 June 1891	William James Compton Maggie Wylie	William James Compton Maggie Wylie 💍 1891/1037	Bachelor Spinster	Gardener	31 25	Invercargill Invercargill	14 days 5 years	St Pauls Presbyterian Church	91/892		18 June 1891	Rev Geo Lindsay
53	27 June 1891	Francis Branthwaite Annie Watson Shaw	Francis Matthew Lee Annie Seaborn Shave 💍 1891/1018	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	21 18	Bay Road, Invercargill Bay Road, Invercargill	3 years 15 years	Office of the Registrar	91/897	George Shaw, father	27 June 1891	J. W. Within, Registrar

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).