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 639

District of Manaia South Quarter ending 30 June 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	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
9	22 April 1893	Thomas Fowler Jessie Gibbs	Thomas Fowler Jessie Gibbs 💍 1893/1791	Batchelor Spinster	Farmer	29 25	Glory Grove Manaiafield	7 days 25 years	Residence, Charlotte St.	93/1531	22 April 1893	Shal. R. Jennings, Church of England
10	25 April 1893	Phillip Henry Bromell Amy Eleanor Needham	Phillip Henry Bromell Amy Eleanor Needham 💍 1893/1796	Batchelor Spinster	Farmer	25 19	Manaia Valley Manaia Valley	15 years 19 years	Registrar's Office	93/1535	25 April 1893	Shal. Bargent, Registrar of Marriages
11	3 May 1893	Joseph Goes Edith Priscilla Kerr	Joseph Eves Edith Priscilla Kerr 💍 1893/1795	Batchelor Spinster	Farmer	26 21	Manaiafield Manaiafield	26 years 19 years	Wesleyan Church	93/1534	3 May 1893	J. P. Pridmore, Wesleyan Methodist
12	23 May 1893	Thomas Watson Elizabeth Katherine Mulligan	Thomas Watson Elizabeth Catherine Mulligan 💍 1893/1793	Batchelor Spinster	Farmer	45 22	Manaiafield Manaiafield	45 years 3 years	Catholic Church	93/1533	23 May 1893	J. Landoner, Catholic Priest
13	29 May 1893	James Steen Martha Wells	James Eden Martha Wells 💍 1893/1798	Batchelor Spinster	Farmer	29 26	Manaiafield Manaiafield	29 years 26 years	Church of England	93/1537	29 May 1893	W. S. Baker, Church of England
14	15 June 1893	Arthur Needham Edith Annie Gibbs	Arthur Needham Edith Annie Gibbs 💍 1893/1792	Batchelor Spinster	Farmer	22 23	Manaia Valley Manaia Valley	22 years 23 years	Residence of J. Griffiths	93/1532	15 June 1893	E. N. Forman, Church of England
15	19 June 1893	Albert Chatford Eliza Ann Blurrish	Albert Stratford Eliza Ann Clissold 💍 1893/1797	Batchelor Spinster	Farmer	22 26	Manaia Forge Brightwater	12 months 14 days	Registrar's Office	93/1536	19 June 1893	Shal. Bargent, Registrar of Marriages
16	30 June 1893	William Grace Catherine Emily Trim	William O'Gready Catherine Aynsley 💍 1893/4137	Batchelor Spinster	Farmer	24 22	Manaia Dovedale	7 days 22 years	Wesleyan Church	93/2487	30 June 1893	Richard Harker, Wesleyan Methodist

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).