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 322

District of Gisborne Quarter ending 31 December 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
697	11 October 1892	Harold Wales Forrest Ellen Houlden	Harold Walice Forrest Ellen Houlden 💍 1892/2929	Bachelor Spinster	Painter None	22 years 20 years	Gisborne Gisborne	18 months 5 years	The dwelling house of George W. Primrose, Gisborne	92/3176	another of these Ellen Houlden	11 October 1892	The Rev: R. M. Ryleburn, Presbyterian Minister
698	12 October 1892	John Cameron Edwards Emily Andreas	John Cameron Emily Andrew 💍 1892/2928	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer None	23 years 28 years	Patutahi Gisborne	18 months 3 years	The Presbyterian Church, Gisborne	92/3175		12 October 1892	The Rev: R. M. Ryleburn, Presbyterian Minister
699	24 October 1892	Herbert Richard Simeon Effie Dean Florence Moss	Herbert Richard Simeon Effie Dean Florence Moss 💍 1892/3683	Bachelor Spinster	Settler None	26 years 26 years	Gisborne Gisborne	5 years 7 days	Holy Trinity Church, Gisborne	92/3925		24 October 1892	The Rev: A. S. Webb, Church of England Minister
700	24 October 1892	John Edward Charles Emily Pritchard	John Edward Charles Emily Pritchard 💍 1892/2949	Bachelor Spinster	Butcher None	23 years 18 years	Gisborne Gisborne	1 year 14 years	At the residence of Mrs. William Bernard, Nesbitt Road, Gisborne	92/3172	Charlotte Bernard, mother of the said Emily Pritchard	24 October 1892	The Rev: L. D. Gibson, Wesleyan Minister
701	8 November 1892	Louis Sing Amy Sanders	Louis Sing Amy Sanders 💍 1892/2950	Bachelor Spinster	Cook None	30 years 22 years	Gisborne Kaiti	7 months 8 months	At the residence of Frank Weaver, Kaiti	92/3173		8 November 1892	The Rev: L. D. Gibson, Wesleyan Minister
702	10 November 1892	Joseph Kennedy Alice Mary Palmer	Joseph Kennedy Alice Mary Palmer 💍 1892/3684	Widower Spinster	Master Mariner None	49 years 20 years	Gisborne Gisborne	15 years 14 years	At the residence of Joseph Palmer, Gladstone Road, Gisborne	92/3926	Joseph Palmer, father of the said Alice Mary Palmer	10 November 1892	The Rev: A. S. Webb, Church of England Minister

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).