Intentions to Marry, 1892

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840404, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Luke at Archives NZ Wellington, May 28 2025

Page 1409

District of Wairau Quarter ending 31 March 1892

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
11	5 March 1892	William Henry Gomes Eliza Emma Freeth	William Henry Gomez Eliza Emma Freeth 💍 1892/544	Bachelor Spinster	Sheep farmer	21 years 19 years	usual Okukari Para	20 years 19 years	Free Residence of Mt Henry Hart, Para, Picton Road	92/485	George Freeth, Father	5 March 1892	Revd R. J. Allsworth
12	14 March 1892	Fred Vercoe Ellen Jessie Sullivan	Fred Vercoe Ellen Jessie Sullivan 💍 1892/552	Bachelor Spinster	Flaxmiller	24 years 21 years	Springlands Springlands	14 years about 3 years	The House of Mr Philip Vercoe of Springlands	92/493		14 March 1892	Revd W. O. Robb
13	16 March 1892	Alexander Lawrence Waller Margaret Jane Alexander	Alexander Lawrence Waller Margaret Jane Alexander 💍 1892/563	Bachelor Spinster	Engineer	26 years 15 years	usual Deep Creek, Wakamarina usual Deep Creek, Wakamarina	6 months 6 days	The Roman Catholic Church, Blenheim	92/482	Robert Alexander, Father	16 March 1892	Revd Patrick Kerrigan
14	21 March 1892	George Bonnington Beatrice Elizabeth Neame	George Bonnington Beatrice Elizabeth Neame 💍 1892/554	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	29 years 18 years	Wairau Valley Renwick Town	25 years 18 years	The Church of the Nativity, Blenheim	92/494	John Edward Neame, Father	21 March 1892	Venble I. S. Grace
15	24 March 1892	Timothy Clancey Vida Thompson	Timothy Clancy Vida Thompson 💍 1892/564	Bachelor Spinster	Coach proprietor	26 years 21 years	usual Cullensville usual Grose Queen Charlotte Sound	3 years 3 days	The Roman Catholic Church, Blenheim	92/483		24 March 1892	Very Revd Patrick Kerrigan
16	25 March 1892	Maurice Hickey Esther Matilda Box	Maurice Hickey Esther Mathilda Cox 💍 1892/543	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Domestic Servant	49 years 41 years	Weld Street, Blenheim Springlands	20 years 2 years	The Roman Catholic Church, Blenheim	92/484		25 March 1892	Very Revd Patrick Kerrigan
17	30 March 1892	William Day Maria Jane Beard Freeth	William Day Maria Jane Beard Freeth 💍 1892/555	Bachelor Spinster	Flaxdresser	24 years 21 years	Grose Road, Blenheim usual Mount Pleasant near Picton	23 years 7 days	The Wesleyan Church, Blenheim	92/495		30 March 1892	Revd Richard Harker

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).