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 767

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
42	28 April 1891	Alexander Beauge Julia Gumphy	Alexander Beange Julia Murphy 💍 1891/1050	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	25 25	Invercargill Invercargill	3 days 1 month	House of Rev John Muir	91/1881		28 April 1891	Rev Geo Walsh
43	29 April 1891	Ernest Caesar Kissetto Lydia Haberfield	Ernest Caesar Rissetto Lydia Haberfield 💍 1891/1026	Bachelor Spinster	Boatbuilder	27 21	Invercargill Invercargill	1 week 3 days	House of Rev John Ferguson	91/1887		29 April 1891	Rev John Ferguson
44	1 May 1891	Simon Ward Spence Emily Maria Philpott	Simon Ward Spence Mercy Maria Philpott 💍 1891/1039	Bachelor Widow	Miner	50 30	Invercargill Invercargill	9 days 6 weeks	Office of the Registrar	91/1894		1 May 1891	J. W. Wilkin, Registrar
45	8 May 1891	Patrick Sheridan Mary Fahey	Patrick Sheridan Mary Fahey 💍 1891/1016	Divorced Widow	Farmer	42 30	Invercargill Invercargill	3 days 3 days	Office of the Registrar	91/1895		8 May 1891	J. W. Wilkin, Registrar
46	19 May 1891	Matthew Latta Ellen James	Matthew Latta Ellen James 💍 1891/1038	Bachelor Spinster	Butcher	30 22	Invercargill South Invercargill	5 days 8 years	House of Rev John James	91/1893		19 May 1891	Rev J. H. Lyne
47	26 May 1891	William Henry Spencer Margaret Jane Gunnion	William Henry Spencer Margaret Jane McQuarrie 💍 1891/1017	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	20 20	Invercargill South Invercargill	1 week 1 month	Office of the Registrar	91/1896	Jane Conwright, Sister of Wm Henry Spencer	11 June 1891	J. W. Wilkin, 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).