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 942

District of Waimea South 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
4	13 April 1891	Louis Arthur Fowler Margaret Eden	Louis Arthur Fowler Margaret Eden 💍 1891/611	Bachelor Spinster	Butcher	25 25	Spring Grove Wakefield	25 years 25 years	Catholic Church, Wakefield	91/1454		13 April 1891	W. J. Mahoney, Catholic Priest
5	26 April 1891	Thomas Fenemor Lucy Wilkinson	Thomas Fenemor Lucy Hopewell Wilkinson 💍 1891/607	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	25 18	Motueka Valley Stanley Brook	25 years 18 years	Residence of James Wilkinson, Stanley Brook	91/1450	James Death Wilkinson, father	26 April 1891	H. M. B. Marshall, Church of England
6	6 May 1891	Martin Thomas White Prudence Palmer	Martin Thomas White Prudence Palmer 💍 1891/608	Bachelor Spinster	Saw Miller	23 23	Pigeon Valley Pigeon Valley	16 years 15 years	St. Johns Church, Wakefield	91/1451		6 May 1891	H. M. B. Marshall, Church of England
7	20 May 1891	Thomas Alexander Morrison Margaret Eliza Davies	Thomas Alexander Morrison Margaret Eliza Jane Davies 💍 1891/610	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	36 21	Belgrove Belgrove	30 years 21 years	Registrar's Office, Wakefield	91/1453		20 May 1891	Eliab Baigent, Registrar of Marriages
8	21 May 1891	Edmund Dison Parkes Mary Ann Birdle	Edmund Dison Parkes Mary Ann Biddle 💍 1891/612	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	29 27	88 Valley Wai-iti	29 years 20 years	Wesleyan Church, Foxhill	91/1455		21 May 1891	John Crump, Wesleyan Methodist
9	9 June 1891	John Pearse Livingston Martha Littlewood Hingston	John Pearce Livingston Martha Littlewood Hingston 💍 1891/609	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	26 19	Foxhill Foxhill	3 days 4 years	St. Lukes Church, Foxhill	91/1452	Frederick J. Hingston, father	9 June 1891	C. O. Mules, Church of England

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 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).