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 196

District of Waimea South 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
14	14 October 1892	Arthur Bargent Caroline Sarah Ann Mrs. Lasem	Arthur Baigent Caroline Sarah Ann MacLaren 💍 1892/3252	Widower Widow	Farmer	54 46	Wakefield Wakefield	50 years 4 years	Registrar Office	92/3487		14 October 1892	Eliah Bargent, Registrar of Marriages
15	19 November 1892	Albert Henry Vaughan Maude Wim	Albert Henry Vaughan Maud Win 💍 1892/3251	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	27 19	Dovedale Dovedale	5 years Residence 19 years	Residence of John Wim	92/3486	John Wim, father	19 November 1892	Robert Young, Wesleyan Minister
16	29 November 1892	William Edward Hill Jeannie Maxwell Ormston	William Edward Hill Jeannie Maxwell 💍 1892/3253	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	21 19	Wakefield Wakefield	4 days 4 days	Registrar Office	92/3488	Jane Maxwell, mother	29 November 1892	Eliah Bargent, Registrar of Marriages
17	10 December 1892	William Harman Amelia Ellen Bell	William Harman Amelia Ellen Bell 💍 1892/3255	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	23 21	Brightwater Brightwater	23 years 3 years	Registrar Office	92/3490		10 December 1892	Eliah Bargent, Registrar of Marriages
18	14 December 1892	William Bryant Vercoe Fanny Jane King	William Bryant Vercoe Fanny Jane King 💍 1892/3254	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	22 28	Wakefield Wakefield	5 weeks 3 weeks	Registrar Office, Wakefield	92/3489		14 December 1892	Eliah Bargent, Registrar of Marriages
19	20 December 1892	Joseph Bargent Charlotte White Taylor	Joseph Baigent Charlotte White Taylor 💍 1892/3274	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	50 24	Wakefield Wakefield	11 years 24 years	St. Pauls Church	92/3485		20 December 1892	W. G. Baker, Church of England
20	29 December 1892	Henry Bale Wyatt Eliza Parrinton	Henry Baly Wratt Eliza Painton 💍 1893/1236	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	35 34	Wakefield Wakefield	35 years Residence 20 years	Residence of William Parrinton	93/501		29 December 1892	G. W. Jennings, 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 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).