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 687

District of Lyell 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	Consent	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
5	5 April 1893	Joseph Ellis Brown May Violet McIntosh	Joseph Ellis Brown May Violet McIntosh 💍 1893/1814	Bachelor Spinster	Carter	18 20	Lyell Lyell	18 years 7 days	House of Geo. Brown, Lyell	93/1739	George Brown, Father; Ada Elizabeth McIntosh, Mother	5 April 1893	Rev. W. Findlay, Wesleyan Minister
6	4 May 1893	Robert Shuttleworth Isabella Hunt formerly Sutter formerly Wilson	Robert Shuttleworth Isabella Hunt 💍 1893/1815	Widower Widow	Farmer	70 65	Lyell Lyell	5 days 5 months	House of John Joyce, Lyell	93/1740		4 May 1893	Rev. P. W. Fairclough, Wesleyan Minister
7	9 May 1893	Alexander Robertson Taylor Alice Maud Wilson	Alexander Robertson Taylor Alice Maud Wilson 💍 1893/1819	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk	25 23	Lyell Lyell	21 years 9 years	House of Alexander Patten, Lyell	93/1743		11 May 1893	Rev. A. H. Headicar, Presbyterian Minister
8	9 May 1893	Henry John Ryde Emma Grace Wheeler	Henry John Ryde Emma Grace Wheeler 💍 1893/1820	Bachelor Spinster	Teacher	23 20	Getties Valley Getties Valley	2 years 20 years	Anglican Church of Epiphany, Getties Valley	93/1744	Mathew Wheeler, Father	9 May 1893	Rev. John Sheldon, Anglican Minister
9	19 May 1893	Samuel Vaughan Julia Anthony formerly Garrick	Samuel Vaughan Julia Anthony 💍 1893/1816	Widower Widow	Labourer	46 37	Lyell Lyell	12 years 16 years	House of John Joyce, Lyell	93/1741		19 May 1893	Rev. P. W. Fairclough, Wesleyan Minister
10	23 May 1893	Francis Coates Mary Walton		Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	38 24	Lyell Lyell	10 days 5 months	Office of Registrar of Marriages, Lyell	Not issued
11	16 June 1893	Henry Simms Christina Auther	Henry Simms Christina Miller 💍 1893/1817	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	26 24	Getties Valley Getties Valley	4 days 7 years	House of Farmer, Getties Valley	93/1742		16 June 1893	Rev. W. Findlay, Presbyterian Minister
12	27 June 1893	Ernest Walter Pony Ellen Elizabeth Hall	Ernest Walter Long Ellen Elizabeth Hall 💍 1893/3860	Bachelor Spinster	Gentleman	27 21	Governor Bay Governor Bay	4 years 4 years	Anglican Church, Governor Bay	93/2620		27 June 1893	Rev. J. Sheldon, Anglican 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).