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 1247

District of Quinan Quarter ending 31 March 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
1	2 January 1891	Charles Albert Creery Hardy Eleanor Elizabeth Bilton	Charles Albert Creery Hardy Eleanor Elizabeth Bilton 💍 1891/3134	Widower Spinster	Merchant	47 years 26 years	Quinan Quinan	3 days 20 years	Presbyterian Church, Quinan	91/696		2 January 1891	Rev. William Gillies, Presbyterian Minister
2	3 January 1891	Edwin Thomas Smale Elizabeth Shepherd	Edwin Thomas Smale Elizabeth Shepherd 💍 1891/3222	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	23 years 19 years	Quinan Pleasant Point	6 months 9 years	Registrar's office, Quinan	91/703	George Shepherd, Father	3 January 1891	Thomas Hawley, Registrar of Marriages, Quinan
3	5 January 1891	Robert Irving Mary Hand	Robert Irving Mary Ford 💍 1891/3133	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Domestic Servant	22 years 24 years	Washdyke Washdyke	12 years 3 years	Dwelling house of Mr. John Taplin, Washdyke	91/695		5 January 1891	Rev. William Gillies, Presbyterian Minister
4	6 January 1891	James Gilbert Harriet Weavers	James Gilbert Harriet Weavers 💍 1891/3233	Bachelor Spinster	Wheelwright Domestic Servant	37 years 25 years	Quinan Quinan	19 years 1 year	Registrar's office, Quinan	91/704		6 January 1891	John Thomson, Deputy Registrar of Marriages, Quinan
5	20 January 1891	William Allen Jemima McDonald	William Allen Jemima McDonald 💍 1891/3131	Widower Widow	Labourer	36 years 32 years	Kensington Quinan	4 years 31 years	Residence of Revd. William James Williams, Butler Street, Quinan	91/693		20 January 1891	Rev. William James Williams, Wesleyan Minister
6	25 January 1891	James Walsh Annie Hoare	James Walsh Annie Hoare 💍 1891/3129	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	28 years 22 years	Kerrytown Kerrytown	4 months 4 years	Roman Catholic Chapel, Pleasant Point	91/691		25 January 1891	Rev. Paul Aver, Roman Catholic Clergy
7	27 January 1891	Frederick West Gordon Susan Williams	Frederick West Gordon Susan Williams 💍 1891/3240	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Domestic Servant	25 years 28 years	Quinan Quinan	7 years 8 years	Registrar's office, Quinan	91/705		27 January 1891	Thomas Hawley, Registrar of Marriages, Quinan
8	31 January 1891	Patrick Nolan Catherine Hoare	Patrick Nolan Catherine Hoare 💍 1891/3130	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	34 years 26 years	Kerrytown Kerrytown	3 days 17 years	Roman Catholic Chapel, Pleasant Point	91/692		31 January 1891	Rev. Paul Aubrey, Roman Catholic Clergyman
9	2 February 1891	Patrick Quirk Annie Waters	Patrick Quirke Annie Waters 💍 1891/3128	Bachelor Spinster	Baker Domestic Servant	28 years 24 years	Quinan Quinan	13 years 4 years	Roman Catholic Chapel, Quinan	91/690		2 February 1891	Rev. James Foley, Roman Catholic Clergyman
10	14 February 1891	Andrew Anison Elizabeth Blanchett	Andrew Avison Elizabeth Blanchett 💍 1891/3241	Bachelor Spinster	Grocer General Servant	19 years 18 years	Quinan Quinan	5 years 18 years	Registrar's office, Quinan	91/706	Ann Anison, Mother; Augustus Ferdinand Blanchett, Father	14 February 1891	Thomas Hawley, Registrar of Marriages, Quinan

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).