Intentions to Marry, 1893

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840405, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Carole and Luke at Archives NZ Wellington, June 6 2025.

A few pages are missing due to focus issues.

Page 346

District of Invercargill Quarter ending 31 March 1893

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	7 January 1893	John Martin Elizabeth Mercer	John Martin Elizabeth Mercer 💍 1893/556	Bachelor Widow	Farmer	48 50	Invercargill Invercargill	1 week 8 years	Office of the Registrar	93/818		7 January 1893	J. W. Wilkin, Registrar
2	10 January 1893	Joshua Rogers Elizabeth Gift Young	Joshua Rogers Elizabeth Gibb Young 💍 1893/240	Widower Spinster	Bootmaker	38 22	Invercargill South Invercargill	3 days 22 years	House of Rev. John Ferguson	93/797		10 January 1893	Rev. John Ferguson
3	10 January 1893	Jeremiah Ryan Winifred Cunningham	Jeremiah Ryan Winifred Cunningham 💍 1893/238	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	30 21	North Invercargill North Invercargill	18 years 21 years	Roman Catholic Church	93/795		10 January 1893	Rev. E. Vereker
4	10 January 1893	David Suffery Mary Eliza Allan	David Tuffery Mary Eliza Allan 💍 1893/229	Bachelor Spinster	Compositor	25 20	South Invercargill Invercargill, Leet Street	18 years 16 years	House of Miss Allan, Leet Street	93/791		25 January 1893	Rev. A. H. Stobo
5	11 January 1893	Samuel Brooks Jane Fox	Samuel Brookes Jane Fox 💍 1893/241	Bachelor Spinster	Grocer's Carter	20 20	Invercargill, Grono St South Invercargill	10 years 19 years	House of Mr. S. Brooks, Grono St	93/798	Samuel Brooks, Father; James Fox, Father	11 January 1893	Rev. John Ferguson
6	16 January 1893	Garibaldi Boxall Jeannie Anderson Bain	Garibaldi Boxall Jeannie Anderson Bain 💍 1893/558	Bachelor Spinster	Plasterer	24 16	Tisbury Tisbury	18 years 2 years	Office of the Registrar	93/819	Thomas Bain, Father	16 January 1893	J. W. Wilkin, Registrar
7	16 January 1893	Robert Baker Helen Douglas	Robert Baker Helen Douglas 💍 1893/219	Bachelor Widow	Sawmiller	23 31	Invercargill Invercargill, Leet St, Supple	3 weeks 31 years	House of Mr. Ronald	93/799		16 January 1893	Rev. John Ferguson

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).